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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232048">Obtuse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anobii1992/pseuds/Anobii1992'>Anobii1992</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Obtuse [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Blindness, Camping, DarkDoctor, Fam!, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, SortOfIt'sGinger, Team as Family, ThirteenInAMood, ThirteenIsStubborn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:55:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>44,740</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anobii1992/pseuds/Anobii1992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor had forgotten how terrifying this was. The all-encompassing darkness ramping up her fears, making her hyper aware of every sound, feeling and smell. They swirled around her as she struggled to put them together to form a coherent picture.</p><p>Or</p><p>While visiting an alien planet the the sight the Doctor borrowed as her twelfth self catches up with her and she unexpectedly finds herself on an inhospitable planet with a fam to take care of and totally blind.</p><p>Set at some point in late Season 12 as the fam get more irritated and concerned by the Doctor's behaviour.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thirteenth Doctor &amp; Yasmin Khan &amp; Graham O'Brien &amp; Ryan Sinclair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Obtuse [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>152</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a new work I've been writing for longer than Shattered but it will be nowhere near as long. There's only a few chapters written so I would love to hear your thoughts on it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Doctor slowed her pace slightly as they cleared the boundary of the town they had been in. The planet they were on, Troome, was like a lush, overly colourful earth rainforest though less hot and damp and considerably more mountainous with deep valleys and gorges carved by the rivers. Unfortunately the rather primitive native species had not been too impressed with their visitors, forcing the fam to hide in a deserted shack during the horrendous rain that had been falling for days and clear out of town before anyone else spotted them as soon as it had stopped.</p><p>“The TARDIS should be just through this thicket of trees in the next clearing” the Doctor announced, picking up her pace. The ground under their feet was uneven, covered in shingle, mud and tufts of grass and vegetation loosened by the rainstorms. She was normally more mindful of Ryan’s dyspraxia and Graham’s dodgy knees when the terrain was tricky but now she seemed to be in a real hurry, though thankfully slightly less manic than when she lost the TARDIS on Desolation.</p><p>Yaz and the Doctor reached the clearing first, followed a few minutes later by Graham and Ryan who were both panting.</p><p>“Uuh Doc, hate to point out the obvious but the TARDIS ain’t here.”</p><p>“Yes got that thanks Graham.”</p><p>“Are we lost?”</p><p>The Doctor pulled out her sonic and scanned, squinting at the readings. She walked up to the nearest tree and licked it, followed by a taste of the soil, oblivious to the looks of revulsion the others were giving her.</p><p>“No” she said distractedly “This is definitely where I parked her.”</p><p>“So what’s happened? Has she been stolen?”</p><p>“Doubt it, the natives here won’t have the kind of technology you would need to steal the TARDIS for millennia. They’re not the most advanced and we’re early in their history. I think it’s more likely to be natural causes.” She indicated the disturbed soil at her feet. “I think she got swept away in the floods. Oooh she will not like that, she hates swimming.”</p><p>“So what do we do Doc?”</p><p>The Doctor shot Graham an incredulous look. “We follow the river and find her. Obviously. Or you can live out the rest of your life in this clearing?”</p><p>Graham and Ryan shared a look over the Doctor’s rude tone but said nothing, trying to remember that the TARDIS was both her home and her oldest friend. The one constant in her chaotic life.</p><p>“Right in good weather we get about 8 hours of daylight to every fourteen of darkness, so we need to get a shift on.” The Doctor announced. “It’s not safe to travel by night here.” She added ominously but didn’t expand on why not.</p><p>“Any idea of how far the TARDIS could have gone.”</p><p>“No not really. Sorry, come on fam. Lets go. No telling how far we might have to hike.” She spun round, her coat tails flapping out behind her and started walking, following the same direction as the river.</p><p>Graham picked up his pack which he had been resting on the ground, slung it over his shoulder and fell into step with Ryan. Yaz was already matching pace with the Doctor though he couldn’t hear what they were saying.</p><p>“Is there any way to tell how far the TARDIS might have gone?” she asked curiously.</p><p>“Not really, she could be anywhere. Good news is that all the rivers here are linked on a cyclical system, so she won’t end up being swept out to sea. Bad news is that it could have followed any of hundreds of paths but I think she’s submerged under water because the sonic can’t detect her.”</p><p>“So we just keep walking until we find her?”</p><p>“Yep! And camping! I love camping!”</p><p>“Why camping?”</p><p>“I could probably run or at a push jog for about five days without stopping but you lot can’t. Don’t worry we’ve all got stuff in our packs. We’ll be fine. Might even be fun!”</p><p>“How worried are you about the TARDIS?”</p><p>“She’ll be fine. Annoyed but fine. I’ve got good eyes, even if she's fully submerged I’ll find her. But the Sonic will be able to follow her path if we need to made a decision when there’s more than one option. Then will be the tricky part, begging forgiveness!”</p><p>“She’s going to be mad at you?”</p><p>“Very. And let’s not forget that the last time she was mad at me she threw me out and I fell through the earth’s atmosphere before crashing through the roof of a certain train carriage in Sheffield!”</p><p>“Hmmmm wonder when that happened!” Graham teased, having caught up with them.</p><p>The Doctor looked around blinking against the changing light. “Speaking of camping guys, I think night is coming earlier than I expected, it was hard to tell with all the rain we’ve been having. We need to find somewhere to stop and soon.”</p><p>Graham found himself looking around anxiously as if some strange creature might be about to lunge at them.</p><p>“This looks like a good spot” the Doctor announced a few minutes later. The river was about fifty meters away, through a thicket of trees and down a small though steep decline. They could hear it flowing past lazily but the ground the Doctor had indicated was flat and covered in strange looking plants: huge ferns that were a deep red, short, spiky purple grass and small pale blue flowers with large dark blue leaves. The trees were incredibly tall with thin red trunks and vast, purple leaves providing shade from the sun, pink vines trailing and looping all over the place.</p><p>“I’ve two small tents in my bag. You all have sleeping bags. Graham you and Ryan go and find stuff to make a fire with. Yaz and I will pitch the tents. Night here can last fourteen to eighteen hours depending on the season so we might be here a while. It’s not safe to travel by night.”</p><p>Graham and Ryan ditched their packs on the floor of the small clearing and set back off into the trees. It didn’t take them too long to find armfuls of twigs and sticks which they shoved into net bags the Doctor had produced from her seemingly bottomless pockets.</p><p>Back in the clearing the Doctor and Yaz had pitched two small tents from the Doctor’s bag and fished the sleeping bags out of everyone else’s which they had unrolled. They would be a snug fit, but everyone would be safe and warm. There was a very definite drop in temperature now the sun was going down and Yaz was feeling chilled. The Doctor explained how she had modified the fabric of the tents so they could withstand a bomb blast if necessary.</p><p>Inexplicably the Doctor also produced a folding kettle, tea bags, sugar and blocks of… something that was wrapped in wax paper that she insisted was food.</p><p>When Ryan and Graham got back they made quick work of beginning to light a fire, Graham eager to have a cuppa.</p><p>“Where’s the Doc?” Graham asked Yaz.</p><p>“Gone to get water. She went ages ago actually; I’ll just go down and check she’s okay. Probably found a fish to talk to or some extra delicious soil to eat knowing her.”</p><p>Graham nodded in acknowledgement as he coaxed the flames to catch the bigger logs having found matches in the Doctor’s bag while Ryan prodded suspiciously at the ‘food’.</p><p>Yaz lifted a torch and carefully picked her way through the trees to the river.</p><p>“Doctor?” she called, looking around, concerned when she couldn’t see her straight away. Her concern wasn’t eased when she did spot her. The Doctor was crouched down, leaning against a tree, with her head in her hands. She hadn’t looked up when Yaz had called out to her.</p><p>“Doctor?” asked Yaz hurrying forwards. The Doctor still didn’t look up but continued to rub at her face. Yaz crouched down beside her and put a gentle hand on her arm. The Doctor jumped violently, falling forwards onto all fours and letting out a surprised yelp. She stayed where she was, breathing hard.</p><p>“Hey, hey it’s just me” said Yaz gently.</p><p>“Yaz?” she asked, still not looking up.</p><p>“Yes it’s me. What’s the matter? What’s happened?”</p><p>“Teeny tiny problem Yaz. Well I say problem. More of a situation. Sorry about that. I uhhhh. I don’t seem to be able to see…”</p><p>“What do you mean you can’t see? What’s happened? Are you hurt?” Yaz reached out for a second time, wary of startling her again but rested her hand on the Doctor’s shoulder.</p><p>“I’m not hurt. Not now anyway. Long time ago, when I was the white haired Scotsman I was trapped in the vacuum of space with my friend Bill. I gave her my helmet, thought I would be okay but I wasn’t and I went blind. Then we were in a bit of a situation and I had to borrow some sight from a future version of myself to get us out. Didn’t worry about it too much at the time, slightly regretting it now.”</p><p>Yaz wrinkled her brow in confusion, not really understanding.</p><p>“Right okay. Not to panic. Sure we can sort it out. Do you uhhh have any usable sight at the moment?”</p><p>“Not right now. Maybe when there’s better daylight? Just kind of nothingness at the moment.”</p><p>“Okay. It’s going to be fine. Come on, lets get back to camp. It’s safer than it is here. There’s definitely something moving about.” Yaz helped the Doctor up, unable to contain a sharp intake of breath as she saw the Doctor’s eyes. Their normal green colour was covered with a thick white film. It reminded Yaz of her grandad who had had advanced cataracts but was worse somehow.</p><p>As soon as she was upright the Doctor batted off Yaz’s supportive hands. “I can manage” she grumbled fiercely, stepping out on her own tentatively and feeling for the next tree.</p><p>The Doctor managed four steps before her foot struck a rock and she fell to the ground. Hard. She gave a shout of frustration, slamming her fist into the ground. Unfortunately, her hand hit another rock, sharp this time, and Yaz caught sight of it dripping blood as she cradled it to her chest. </p><p>Suddenly, there was a shout that sounded suspiciously like Graham followed by a yell from Ryan. The Doctor whipped her head around to the direction of the sound and attempted to get to her feet again but was unsuccessful amongst the dense woodland and only succeeded in banging her shoulder hard into a tree and once again falling to the ground. Yaz held her breath, half expecting the Doctor to throw a tantrum after the way she had hit out at the rock but she didn’t.</p><p>“Doctor we have to get back. Now!” shouted Yaz, “For goodness sake let me give you a hand.” The Doctor gave a huff of defeat, her jaw set but held out her hand for Yaz to take.</p><p>Yaz grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. She held on tight, gently tugging and guiding the Doctor through the trees. Fortunately it was only a few minutes’ walk back despite the dense undergrowth until they reached the site where they had set up tents.</p><p>“What happened?” demanded the Doctor as they stopped suddenly and she bumped lightly into Yaz.</p><p>Graham looked at her confused. Her head was bowed slightly, allowing her short hair to hide her face but she was still holding Yaz’s hand with one of her own and the other was bleeding and clasped to her chest.</p><p>“There was a creature. I don’t know what. Kind of like a monkey I suppose but its fur was blue and it had talons and fangs. Came right at us. Ryan scared it away with the fire.”</p><p>“Right. But its gone now? And no one is hurt?” she clarified.</p><p>“No Doc, we’re all fine. What’s happened to you?”</p><p>“Oh this?” she asked holding out her hand “Slight argument with a rock. It’s nothing.”</p><p>Yaz interrupted. “First off, that’s not nothing, you’re bleeding all over the place. Second, aren’t you forgetting something a little more serious?”</p><p>“Right. Yeah. Long story short, had to borrow some sight from my future self a while back and I appear to have borrowed it from now.”</p><p>“What?” asked Graham looking confused.</p><p>“Wait, so, what, you can’t see right now?” asked Ryan.</p><p>“Right you are Ryan. Gold star to Ryan.”</p><p>“You’re blind! How? Why? For ever?”</p><p>The Doctor raised her head towards Graham’s voice, her eyes coming to rest somewhere over his shoulder.</p><p>“All very good questions. Don’t really have the answers for you right now. Told you, I was blind for a while when I was old me. Got into a tight spot and had to borrow some sight from a future me but future me is me right now. Don’t know how long it’ll last. Best case scenario it’s back by morning, worst case I’m blind for the rest of this regeneration. Most likely somewhere in between.”</p><p>“Right so what do we do?”</p><p>“We carry on. What else? We still have to get back to the TARDIS. I’ll be fine.”</p><p>“Don’t suppose you’ve been holding out on us Doc? Got any extra alien spidey-senses you haven’t been telling us about?”</p><p>The Doctor managed a snort in his direction. “No Graham, funnily enough I don’t, just the normal ones you have.”</p><p>“Is there a first aid kit in one of these packs?” asked Yaz.</p><p>“You can’t stick a plaster over my eyes and kiss them better Yaz.”</p><p>“Not for your eyes, for your hand. You’re dripping blood everywhere and I think it’s attracting those monkey things. They’re in the trees all around us, watching.”</p><p>“There’s one in your pack Yaz.” Piped up Ryan helpfully.</p><p>Graham immediately started rummaging for it while Yaz helped the Doctor sit on a rock.</p><p>“This is really deep Doctor. It’s about an inch long starting at the base of your index finger going diagonally down. It’s definitely gone down through all the layers of skin and into the muscle. It probably needs stitches but I don’t think you’re going to get them.”</p><p>“It’s fine. I heal faster than you lot. I’ll just clean it and cover it.”</p><p>“Uh Doctor, maybe I should…”</p><p>“I’m not helpless.” She protested, instantly irritated.</p><p>“I know you’re not helpless. I would want to do it if you could see or for Ryan or Graham. And I would want someone else to do it for me.”</p><p>The Doctor huffed in annoyance but held out her hand for Yaz. Yaz took her hand, pouring some of the water from her canteen over it to wash away the blood. She rested it gently on her own knee and used a pair of tweezers to pull out a few stray bits of bark before pulling the gaping edges of the wound closed with steri-strips and wrapping the Doctor’s hand in a bandage to keep it clean while it healed.</p><p>Graham and Ryan had sat themselves close to the fire to protect themselves from the chill and were cautiously sniffing the contents of the wax packets the Doctor insisted were edible. Yaz took the Doctor’s hand and brought her over to join them.</p><p>“Are you sure we can eat this stuff Doc?”</p><p>“Yes Graham. It’s perfectly safe for humans. Used to be the only food the TARDIS provided. I’m afraid it’s going to be potluck on what flavour you get though, I wrote the labels on in Galifreyan. Didn’t really consider the possibility that I would need someone to read them to me.”</p><p>There was an uncomfortable silence where none of them knew what to say until Ryan managed to fill it. “Well it’ll be a surprise then won’t it!” He handed Graham and Yaz a package each and hesitated over the Doctor before electing to just drop one into her lap. She jumped slightly at the sudden, unexpected impact but accepted it without comment, her fingers delicately exploring the wrapper until she found the edge and was able to open it.</p><p>“Why doesn’t the TARDIS translate Gallifreyan?” asked Yaz with interest.</p><p>The Doctor shrugged. “Why would she? It’s my native language, I don’t need it translated. She translates for me, you guys are just along for the ride on that one I’m afraid!”</p><p>“Hey! A roast dinner with all the trimmings!” came Grahams delighted voice opposite her. He had presumably started eating.</p><p>“I’ve got a fry up!” said Ryan sounding equally pleased and situated somewhere to her left.</p><p>“I’ve got treacle pudding. What have you got Doctor?”</p><p>The Doctor took a tentative nibble off the end and promptly spat it out again, a look of utter disgust on her face.</p><p>“What’s the matter?”</p><p>“Pears. I hate pears. They should be outlawed across the universe. Disgusting things.”</p><p>She scowled even more when the other three burst out laughing.</p><p>“Here I’ll trade you. You love sugar and this is way too sweet for my taste anyway. I’ll rescue you from the evil pears!” Yaz offered. She took the offending package out of the Doctors hands and lightly brushed the treacle pudding one against the back of her hand for her to grasp.</p><p>“Oh my God, this is amazing” she exclaimed, taking a huge bite of the pudding, eyes closed in bliss. The others rolled their eyes at her eulogising, exchanging glances. How was she so easily appeased?</p><p>The four of them sat for a short while longer before they started to get thoroughly chilled.</p><p>“I think we all need to go to bed. I can hear those monkeys, they’re all around us and the tents will protect us. Graham, Ryan you go first and I’ll use the sonic to seal the tent behind you. I can seal mine and Yaz’s from the inside. It’s important we stay in them until it’s daylight.”</p><p>The Doctor allowed Ryan to awkwardly steer her from behind towards the boys tent, stumbling slightly over the uneven ground. He and Graham clambered in and zipped the tent shut behind them. The Doctor bent down, reaching out for the tent and feeling for the zip. When she found it she pointed the sonic at it and called out a reassurance to the boys that they would be safe and she would undo it in the morning.</p><p>She breathed out a soft sigh of relief when she was saved from the embarrassment of having to call out for help to find her own tent when Yaz gently touched her hand and she was able to take Yaz’s arm. It was a familiar enough position for the Doctor, she had been blind before after all, but she was surprised Yaz knew how to be a guide.</p><p>The Doctor crawled into the tent first, followed by Yaz who closed the zip behind her and the Doctor sealed it with her sonic.</p><p>Yaz moved back against the wall of the tent, the Doctor had clearly never bothered to engineer the dimensions in here the way she had in the backpacks and there was just enough room for their two sleeping bags side by side and their packs and shoes at the end.</p><p>Yaz tugged off her shoes, relieved to wriggle her toes freely again and grimacing slightly over the blisters that were forming. She sat back and was surprised when the Doctor grabbed her hand with impressive accuracy.</p><p>“Yaz, my eyes, how do they look?”</p><p>“Oh” she spluttered, unsure of how to answer.</p><p>“Yaz tell me, I need to know.”</p><p>Yaz shifted so she was directly in front of the Doctor and she gently reached out and swept the Doctor’s hair out of her face.</p><p>“They’re cloudy, I can see your iris and pupil but only just and the whites of your eyes are more grey. It’s like there’s a layer of film or gunk over them.”</p><p>The Doctor nodded, accepting the information without comment. “Do you have a torch?”</p><p>“Yeah there’s one in my bag, why?”</p><p>“I need you to shine it in my eyes, see if my pupils react. I have proper diagnostic equipment on the TARDIS but I can’t wait that long. Please.”</p><p>Yaz rummaged in her pack, finding the torch she was looking for.</p><p>“Ready?”</p><p>“Just do it. Please.”</p><p>Yaz flicked on the torch, blinking against the sudden bright light. She shone it directly into the Doctor’s face aiming at first one eye and then the other watching carefully for any miniscule reaction.</p><p>“Well” the Doctor asked, trying to keep the plea out of her voice.</p><p>“I’m sorry Doctor, I couldn’t see anything.”</p><p>The Doctor pursed her lips, looking away and allowing her hair to swing in front of her face again giving her a modicum of privacy. Yaz allowed her the moment and pulled off her jacket and wriggled out of her trousers and bra so she would be more comfortable overnight.</p><p>The Doctor shook off her thoughts and joined Yaz in making herself more comfortable for the night by removing her coat, boots and braces. Settled in their sleeping bags the Doctor asked Yaz “How come you knew how to give me stuff and be a guide… and ask me if I have any usable sight? That was a really good question.”</p><p>She heard Yaz shift slightly in the rustly sleeping bag.</p><p>“When I was at school my best friend, Nolee, was blind. We met on our first day of secondary school, she was my only friend. She turned into the first person I fell in love with. We did everything together. Outcasts together and all that. But when we were 16 she was one of the first people in the world to undergo a pioneering operation to restore her sight. It worked but when she came back to school she became best friends with Izzie Flint. Told her all sorts of personal stuff. Even tried to pretend she had never been gay and I had forced her to be my girlfriend.”</p><p>“Oh, Yaz I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”</p><p>“Of course you should. You have a right to know I know how not to let you walk into a tree or fall into the river though I’m sure Ryan or Graham would be happy to…”</p><p>“Yaz stop. Graham would be a terrible guide. He would be so busy telling me about some random thing that he would let me walk into overhanging branches and with Ryan the chances are we would both end up flat on our faces.”</p><p>Yaz managed a giggle despite the anxious weight on her chest.</p><p>“How can you be so calm?”</p><p>“I’m not. I want to scream and shout and cry but what good will that do us? It’s my fault we’re in this mess. My fault I’m blind and my duty to get you home safe so I have to be calm. I can have a meltdown later if it’s called for. But right now, I’m focusing on getting us all out of here in one piece.”</p><p>“You don’t have to do that you know.”</p><p>“What, get you home safely”?</p><p>“Well that’s a bonus. But I meant you don’t have to sacrifice your feelings, so we feel better. You’ve just lost your sight suddenly. And I know you’ve apparently been blind before but that is still a traumatic thing to happen. I just want you to know that you don’t have to bottle up your feelings all the time. We don’t expect you to be perfect, you shouldn’t either.”</p><p>Yaz snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag against the cold night air. It was surprisingly comfortable, and she found she couldn’t feel the hard ground beneath her back. Exhausted from the long walk of the day and relaxed from the comforting presence of the Doctor beside her Yaz quickly fell asleep.</p><p>The Doctor sat up, hunched over her knees playing absently with the torch, flicking it on and off in the hope that something would happen. She knew she was crying but she refused to acknowledge it by wiping the tears from her face. She kept her hand in front of her mouth so Yaz wouldn’t be able to hear her.</p><p>When Yaz woke up a few hours later the Doctor had given up on the torch but was curled up tightly in her sleeping bag, still crying softly. Yaz reached over and gently pulled her in close for a hug, wrapping her arms around the Doctor tightly and smoothing her hair out of her face. The Doctor responded by clasping Yaz’s arm gently, relaxing into the hug. Neither of them spoke, no words were needed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's only the second day but the cracks are beginning to show.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yaz didn’t know if the Doctor had slept or not, but the next time she woke up it was morning and the Doctor wasn’t crying anymore. Yaz didn’t move, but took the opportunity to watch her for a moment without her noticing. She was sitting up, unnaturally straight, her legs in the lotus position and hands clasped around her feet, for all the world looking like she was staring at Yaz, but her eyes were still shrouded in the thick film they had been the night before.</p><p>“Yaz I know you’re awake, quit staring at me.”</p><p>“Sorry Doctor. Morning. How did you know I was awake?”</p><p>“Your breathing changed Yaz. I still have much better hearing than you do even if I can’t see anything.”</p><p>“Still nothing?”</p><p>“No.” she admitted quietly, looking away from Yaz.</p><p>“Okay well let’s get dressed, you can release the boys from their tent, we can have breakfast and figure out how we’re going to find the TARDIS, maybe we can find it before the end of the day.”</p><p>Yaz rummaged around the end of the tent and handed the Doctor her boots and braces and fished out her own clothes.</p><p>Fully suited and booted, the Doctor used the sonic to let them out of the tent and they cautiously emerged, though there was no sign of the scary monkey creatures from the night before. They let the boys out of their tent and relit the fire to warm water for the tea that Graham insisted on making.</p><p>“Right fam, we need to keep moving. We don’t want the TARDIS to get any further away than necessary and there’s only about eight hours of daylight left.”</p><p>“What about the monkey things?”</p><p>“Well I don’t know Graham. I can’t see any can you?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.</p><p>No one quite knew how to answer her.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” She sighed. “That was uncalled for. We didn’t see any yesterday when we were walking. I think we can work on the assumption that they’re nocturnal for now. But just keep your eyes peeled. We don’t know what else might be hanging out in this forest.”</p><p>When they had finished eating, they quickly gathered up their camp, stuffing sleeping bags and tents into impossibly small bags and then dropping them into the packs they were carrying.</p><p>“We just need to follow the river right?” clarified Ryan.</p><p>“Yeah, as long as we’re walking the same way its flowing, we’ll come across the TARDIS eventually. I just have no way to tell how long it might take. We might find it in twenty minutes or twenty days. Sorry fam.”</p><p>“Not your fault Doc.”</p><p>“We might have to slow down a bit today Doctor, we’re going down the mountain but it looks pretty rough, worse than yesterday. I don’t do so well on steep hills and there’s loads of loose rock and stuff.” Ryan said nervously.</p><p>Ryan was standing overlooking the mountain but Graham and Yaz were standing next to the Doctor. They saw her visibly stiffen in response to Ryan’s description of what she was going to have to tackle with no sight.</p><p>“It’s going to be fine. Take it slow, my old knees don’t go too fast anyway. We’ll treat it like a camping holiday, like when you did Duke of Edinburgh in school.” Graham reassured him.</p><p>“Graham my whole group got lost and we had to be rescued.”</p><p>“Well you can’t possibly get lost this time, we’re just following the river. Just keep walking, one foot in front of the other.”</p><p>“We don’t have time to stand here talking about it” interrupted the Doctor “We need to get down the side of the mountain before nightfall and we’re wasting time.”</p><p>“You’re right, lets get a move on” agreed Yaz. She brushed her hand against the Doctor’s so that she could reach out and securely take Yaz’s elbow to use her as a sighted guide.</p><p>The four of them hitched their packs onto their backs, Graham shook out his dodgy knees and they started walking. The Doctor hung back for a moment allowing Ryan and Graham to start down the mountain and turned to Yaz.</p><p>“Yaz, what Ryan said, how bad is this mountain?” she asked urgently.</p><p>“It’s not great Doctor. From here it looks like there’s parts where we’re going to need two hands to get through and there’s more forest at the bottom. If you don’t mind me asking, when you were blind before, did you use a cane or whatever the alien technological equivalent is? If we could find you some sort of stick or something would it help?”</p><p>The Doctor smiled in response. “I had sonic sunglasses. Don’t have them anymore, they were damaged. I wasn’t blind for that long, only a few weeks.”</p><p>“Well not to worry. I’m an experienced guide, you’re going to be fine. We all are.”</p><p>“Course we are. Don’t doubt you for a moment Yaz.” She pushed her arm forward, signalling to Yaz that she was ready to start. Yaz started walking, the Doctor had a light grip on her arm, just above Yaz’s elbow which would allow her to read her friends movements as she walked and hopefully not fall flat on her face in the process.</p><p>Much as Yaz was used to acting a s a guide, even if she was out of practice, she had never guided Nolee over such difficult, uneven terrain and even when they were walking together Nolee had always had her white cane to help manage uneven ground. It would warn her of any dips or rises, cracks, loose terrain or small obstacles.  And the stakes had never been so high. The Doctor would scoff if she said it out loud but Yaz was feeling very much responsible for keeping her friend safe. She knew the Doctor wouldn’t admit it but Yaz knew she was frightened, the small shake in her voice, the tremble of her hands and slight scrunch of her face gave her away.</p><p>“Hey Doctor, I know it’s scary but try and take normal steps. I’m not gonna let you walk into anything but there’s a lot of roots and plants on the ground you could trip on if you’re shuffling  your feet like that.”</p><p>Yaz slowed her pace fractionally as the Doctor tightened her hold on her arm.</p><p>“You’re okay” Yaz reassured her, reaching over and squeezing the hand that was on her elbow. “We’re about to start going down the mountain. We won’t be going in a straight line, there’s a lot of rocks we’re going to have to avoid.”</p><p>The Doctor had forgotten how terrifying this was. The all-encompassing darkness ramping up her fears, making her hyper aware of every tiny noise around her and the warnings about the terrain were stuck in her head and making her sensitive to every pebble and tree root her boots stepped on. She knew where Yaz was of course, she was holding onto her, the smooth leather of her jacket and her slightly heavy breathing her only constant right now. But Ryan and Graham could be anywhere. Wait… where were Ryan and Graham? She couldn’t hear them breathing or talking, there were no tell-tale sounds of their footsteps. There was too much noise in her head, she couldn’t focus.</p><p>She stopped walking, she needed to concentrate. She needed to know where Ryan and Graham were. She let go of Yaz’s arm and braced her hands against her knees, ignoring the stab of pain from her hand where she had stupidly hurt it the night before. She needed to think. How was she supposed to keep them safe if she couldn’t see them?</p><p>She was aware of Yaz standing in front of her now. Yaz’s hand was on her arm and she grabed it like a lifeline.</p><p>“Doctor what’s happening?”</p><p>Yaz. That was Yaz talking.</p><p>
  <em>Ryan and Graham.</em>
</p><p>“Where are Ryan and Graham?” she managed to gasp.</p><p>“Right here Doc.”</p><p>
  <em>Graham. That was definitely Graham. No one else calls her Doc. No one else would get away with it.</em>
</p><p>She reached out. She needed concrete proof.</p><p>Yaz watched in concern as the Doctor’s hand flailed in the air as she searched for Graham. He recognised what she needed and caught her hand.</p><p>“I’m right beside you Doc.”</p><p>“I’m here too.”</p><p>
  <em>That was Ryan’s voice.</em>
</p><p>She felt a hand grip her shoulder. </p><p>Yaz was still holding her arm. They’re all there. Her fam. She can breathe now.</p><p>“Sorry fam. Just needed a moment. We can go now.” She reassured them, trying to keep the embarrassment out of her voice.</p><p>She heard Ryan move off first, he’s lighter than Graham but has a heavier tread. Graham followed, he stomps slightly as he walks. Yaz took her hand from her arm and once again the Doctor can feel that light touch against the back of her own hand and she can follow it to take the young womans elbow again.</p><p>In front of them Ryan stumbled slightly. “He’s fine” Yaz explained, feeling the Doctor hesitate. “Just a tree root.”</p><p>After a couple of hours walking without further incident, Graham called the need for a rest which the others readily agreed to. Graham sank onto a large rock with a muffled groan while Ryan flopped onto the ground beside him, abandoning his pack with a flourish. Yaz guided the Doctor next to Graham’s rock where she cautiously sat down, feeling the ground around her before committing and Yaz sat on her other side.</p><p>Ryan started fishing around in his pack, he was carrying the water bottles and food, and handed the small, wax packets out. He hesitated over the Doctor again, unsure and dropped it into her lap where it bounced off again and landed in the ferns. She jumped.</p><p>“Ryan can you <em>please</em> stop dropping stuff on me” she complained. </p><p>“Uh.. right… sorry… What do I…?” he mumbled awkwardly.</p><p>She sighed. “Just tell me if you need to give me something.”</p><p>“I can do that. Sorry Doctor.”</p><p>She brushed off his apology and heard him move away and then realised she had no idea where the food had actually ended up. She flushed with humiliation as she realised she was going to have to fumble around looking for it with no telling how far away it could have ended up or in which direction given the uneven, sloped ground.</p><p>“At your 2 O’Clock” came Yaz’s voice from her right, interrupting her internal panic.</p><p>The Doctor nodded in acknowledgement, reaching out in front of her to the right and easily found the packet with the minimum amount of embarrassment.</p><p>“I’ve got your water bottle for you Doctor, can you uhh… put out your hand?”</p><p>Yaz watched as the Doctor tentatively put out her hand and Ryan shoved the bottle into it clumsily as she nibbled on her pasta flavoured tablet. She remembered when she and Nolee had been assigned seats next to each other in nearly every class by virtue of being next to each other alphabetically. Yaz had been terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing and upsetting her but she had figured out how to give the subtle cues her friend needed to get through daily life independently. In some ways it was exactly the same and Ryan and Graham would figure them out just the way she had, though she hoped that the Doctor’s blindness wasn’t going to last long enough for that really.</p><p>But Nolee had been born with poor sight that had gradually worsened, though she had never lived in total darkness the way the Doctor apparently was. She was used to it and it was just another trait in the same way that she had been tall or had brown hair.</p><p>The Doctor on the other hand seemed to have lost her sight all of a sudden with no prior warning. She wasn’t used to navigating the world without it or asking for any kind of help ever. She also seemed to be pretty averse to any kind of physical contact on a normal day so Yaz imagined that for her, having to physically hold onto someone to move around safely would be distinctly uncomfortable, embarrassing and against every instinct she had. The Doctor was nothing if not self-sufficient. </p><p>“Yaz? Are you alright?” Graham was standing in front of her, his pack on his back while Ryan looked at her in confusion. The Doctor’s face was carefully neutral but her head was cocked as she listened intently.</p><p>“Sorry, I’m fine, think I was just daydreaming.” Yaz stood up, shoved her jacket into her pack, hoisted the whole lot onto her back and was ready to go. She offered the Doctor her arm again and they were off, letting Ryan and Graham take the lead once more. It was very un-Doctor like to let someone else lead and Yaz wondered if she found it easier to track them audibly when they were in front because keeping a close eye on the fam <em>was</em> very Doctor like.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The four of them stopped at the top of a steep though not vertical drop. It was the fastest way down to get onto flat ground and it was getting late, but it was also the most difficult route.</p><p>“What do you think Doc?” Graham asked after Yaz had finished describing it to her. “We can attempt it or we can try and find another way down. Your call.”</p><p>The Doctor took a breath. Quite honestly, what they were asking her to tackle terrified her. And another thing was that it sounded like it could really use both hands to get them down safely which she couldn’t do and hold onto Yaz at the same time. She would also be stopping Yaz from having complete use of both hands. True, Yaz had proved to be an excellent guide so far but although the terrain had been uneven, the walk had been at a reasonably gentle decline most of the day, only having short bursts where it was steep or difficult. It was also true that she had stumbled a couple of times but so had everyone else. But on the other hand, she didn’t want the fam exposed once it got dark. It was dangerous and there was no telling how long it might take them to find another route down.</p><p>“I’ll manage” she said finally, far from convinced that it was the right decision. If one of them got hurt… well. She didn’t even want to think about it. “Ryan what about you?”</p><p>“It’s fine Doctor. Graham and I will go down first. Besides I spent that much time falling over as a kid I practically bounce.”</p><p>The Doctor felt the air around her shift slightly as Ryan walked in front of her, followed by the crunching of the shale as he started shimmying his way down. More noise followed, what the Doctor could only assume was Graham attempting to follow him.</p><p>“They’re okay” Yaz reassured her quietly. “They’re going down feet first but using their hands behind them for extra stability. They’ve already chucked their packs down ahead of them. They’re mostly just sliding down and using their hands and feet to control their descent. Lots of skidding and sliding but they’re in control.”</p><p>The Doctor nodded in acknowledgement. She appreciated Yaz letting her know what was going on, as she had done all day, but in some ways, she didn’t want to know. The boys weren’t making reassuring sounds, she could hear the shale shifting and sliding under their feet and the boys themselves making small shouts and exclamations which faded as they got closer to the bottom of the mountain. However, the noise of the local wildlife was picking up as they started waking up.</p><p>“Right, they’re down and safe.” Yaz said a few minutes later. “Are you ready?”</p><p>“Yeah” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “Yes. Let’s do this” she tried again, more strongly this time.</p><p>“I’m going to take your hand and walk us to the edge so we can sit down and chuck our packs to the bottom of the mountain. Then we can start heading down, I’ll keep hold of your hand the whole way.” Yaz explained, leading them the short distance to the edge. The Doctor crouched down, exploring the ground lightly with her hands before sitting down and cautiously putting her feet over the edge and shuffling forwards with Yaz’s quiet encouragement.</p><p>Yaz shouted down to the boys that their packs were on the way and she and the Doctor sent them rolling down the hill where they bumped and bounced the whole way down. Yaz winced, one wrong move from either her or the Doctor could lead to them both tumbling to the bottom in the same way and they would be badly hurt or worse.</p><p>Yaz gave the Doctor’s hand a tight squeeze before saying “Let’s go” and slowly moving forward. Yaz knew the reason you guided a person who was blind or visually impaired by giving them your elbow rather than your hand was because it allowed them to read your movements more accurately and was all round safer. However, in this case, holding hands would hopefully prove better as it would allow them to have an extra hand for balance on the ground.</p><p>Yaz kept talking as she and the Doctor slowly shuffled and skidded down the hill, making the first part of the descent without incident. The shale skidded disconcertingly under their feet and it was much steeper than the Doctor and anticipated and there was nothing to grab for extra stability. It felt like Yaz’s hand was the only thing stopping her from sliding right off the edge of the planet.</p><p>Suddenly Yaz felt herself sliding out of control, her hand was ripped away from the Doctor’s as she rolled, almost comically, down the rocky slope before crashing painfully into a tree with a loud groan.</p><p>She could hear Ryan and Graham shouting at her from where they were still below, but she looked up instead to where the Doctor had frozen, head tilted as she tried to locate Yaz using just her ears.</p><p>“I’m fine Doctor” she called up to the other woman. “Rolled about twenty feet and crashed into a tree. I’ll have some good bruises in the morning but other than that I’m fine.”</p><p>She gave the Doctor a moment to process the information before continuing. “I don’t think I can safely climb back up to meet you. If I keep talking can you keep sliding down to me, just the way we were?”</p><p>The Doctor honestly didn’t know. Could she? She was trying very hard not to show it, but she was terribly afraid and overwhelmed. If one of her fam got hurt it would be entirely her fault. She should stay where she was and let them find the TARDIS. The emergency protocols would take them home and then they would be safe. Except she was selfish. Too selfish because she was too frightened to do it, to be left on this rock without her fam there. It’s not like that there was ever going to be a good time to randomly go blind but this was particularly inconvenient. She gritted her teeth in frustration.</p><p>“Doctor?” came Yaz’s voice from below her. “I know you can do this. Just keep moving.”</p><p>Trying to act more confident than she felt the Doctor focused on the sound of Yaz’s voice. She had no idea what her companion was saying but she just needed to get to that voice. “Deep breath Doctor you can do this” she muttered to herself, squeezing her eyes shut, like that was going to make a difference now.</p><p>She slowly inched herself a little further along, resisting the urge to cry. What was it about this body that meant it always wanted to cry? Was she just always going to be weepy this time around or was it the whole being a woman thing? She honestly didn’t know but she bit her lip hard to stop herself from letting out an undignified yelp as her foot skidded and she felt herself lurch alarmingly.</p><p>She couldn’t however stifle her cry as something brushed across her stomach, the creepy monkey creatures flashing across her mind as she slapped and batted away whatever it was.</p><p>“Hey, Doctor stop! It’s just me! I’ve got you!” Yaz exclaimed, her voice finally making it through the fog in the Doctor’s brain. She realised there was no creature attacking her, what she had thought was a monkey climbing over her stomach, making its way for her neck was actually Yaz’s arm, grabbing her strongly around the waist to stop her descending any further.  </p><p>She took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. “Sorry Yaz! Was a bit faster than I realised there.”</p><p>Yaz gave her a look she knew the other woman wouldn’t be able to appreciate and took her hand again.</p><p>“Ready to keep going?”</p><p>“Yep! Always ready me!”</p><p>“We’re about half-way down. It looks like the bottom is going to end in a sheer drop of about eight feet but I’ll stop before we get there and let you know.”</p><p>Another few tension filled minutes later Yaz put her arm out to stop the Doctor’s descent.</p><p>“Ryan and Graham are right underneath us now.” Yaz explained. “Sit down so we can shuffle right up to the edge.”</p><p>The Doctor adjusted her stance and shuffled forward the last foot or so under Yaz’s instructions, allowing her feet to dangle nerve rackingly over the edge.</p><p>“Sorry, think the drop is more like ten feet.”</p><p>Ryan called up to them. “I dropped down first and caught Graham. I can catch you too Doctor.”</p><p>She was annoyed at being compared to Graham, the slowest and least physically able of their group. She wasn’t helpless for crying out loud, she just couldn’t see.</p><p>“I don’t need to be caught Ryan” she said sharply.</p><p>“You can’t brace yourself for an impact you can’t see” Yaz pointed out reasonably.</p><p>“I said I’m fine Yaz.” She snapped, glaring in Yaz’s direction.</p><p>“Fine. But if you jar your knees or back or break your ankle through your own pig-headedness I don’t want to hear about it. I’m going to jump, see you down there.”</p><p>Yaz shimmied towards the edge and dropped, landing confidently on her feet, thankful for all the hours she put in at the gym and her training from the police.</p><p>“All clear.” she called up.</p><p>The Doctor was holding tight to the edge of the sill she was sitting on, taking a steadying breath before leaping into the abyss.</p><p>She landed hard, toppling forward onto all fours and stifling a groan, not wanting Yaz to say ‘I told you so’.  She took a moment to catch her breath before pushing herself onto her knees and standing up. She could feel her ankle scream in protest which she ignored.</p><p>She paused, realising she wasn’t sure where the fam was. She trusted them enough to not sneak off just because she couldn’t see but they were being annoyingly quiet right now. She could feel fear again, building and bubbling its way up her throat, almost to the point of giving in and calling out when one of them, she suspected Graham but couldn’t be sure, shoved her pack into her chest without warning, almost causing her to topple over again.</p><p>“We literally had this conversation about four hours ago. Warn me or something. Gees, it’s not that hard.”</p><p>“Sorry Doc” came Graham’s voice from her left, sounding sheepish.</p><p>Ah, so it had been him.</p><p>Graham shot a significant glance at Ryan who shrugged in a ‘what can you do’ kind of manner. The Doctor had been in a mood ever since they had run into the Master a couple of months ago but over the course of the day she had become steadily more irritable even for her, alternating between snapping at her friends and walking in sullen silence.</p><p>It wasn’t like he didn’t get it, he would be beyond terrified if he went blind even quicker than overnight. But he was old-fashioned, he believed that there was never an excuse for rudeness. And something had happened that had transformed their happy, bubbly, enthusiastic, excited head of the fam into a sullen, quiet, sulky teenager. He didn’t know what it was, not through lack of asking. Running into her ‘best enemy’ didn’t seem to be enough of an explanation but there was definitely something wrong and it went back much further than their arrival on this planet.</p><p>Almost reluctantly Yaz moved forward as the Doctor shouldered her bag, she had no particular desire to spend any more time walking with the Doctor’s bad mood, but she steeled herself and nudged the Doctor’s hand, letting her know that she was willing to act as a guide once again.</p><p>The Doctor pulled her arm away from Yaz’s touch. “I don’t need your help.” She muttered mutinously.</p><p>“Fine” said Yaz, exasperated. “There’s a spot a couple of hundred metres away that we think might be good for camping because from here it looks like it’s free from the rocks and boulders that are littering the ground round here. I’ll go catch up with the boys then shall I and we’ll see you later.”</p><p>Yaz stalked off, full of annoyance but stopped just a few metres away. She had no intention of actually leaving the Doctor alone, that would be unspeakably cruel, but maybe giving her space for a few minutes would allow her to realise that she actually needed help. They all wanted to be her friend, her ‘fam’, but she was making that incredibly difficult these days and but they weren’t prepared to be snapped and shouted at. The last few months had been hard on all of them and now Yaz thought about it, this was the longest the four of them had spent together since the Kasaavin, the Doctor kept dropping them off places and wandering off, promising she would be back in an hour and then they wouldn’t see her for the rest of the day. Even when she was with them she wasn’t.</p><p>The Doctor stood, listening to Yaz walk away from her, realising that she had said she was following the boys which meant she was all alone. She wasn’t even entirely sure which direction they had gone in. Great work Doctor, now what are you going to do? You certainly won’t be <em>seeing</em> her anywhere later. She clenched her fists, listening hard for some sign of where the others were. She could hear the river bubbling cheerfully, almost like it was mocking her. There was rustling behind her but it didn’t sound like footsteps. No voices, but also no birdsong, night must have fallen. The rustling might be the monkey creatures…</p><p>She sniffed. Smoke. The others must have lit a fire already. They would be alright without her, Ryan had all the food in his pack. Then she remembered the tents were in hers, they wouldn’t be safe overnight without them. She let out a heavy sigh, slowly turning in the direction that the smell was coming from and taking a tentative step forwards.  Sometimes she wondered if she should just drop them off home. They were clearly growing more and more tired of her. She tried, she really did, taking them to nice planets. Safe planets where no one was going to get hurt or have to run for their lives and she could go to Gallifrey and hunt for answers, she had given up on her hunt for survivors months ago. She would stay for a few hours or days, occasionally even weeks, back to the TARDIS, wash the smell of smoke from her hair, fresh clothes, plaster a smile on her face and back to collect them, ideally before they noticed she had gone. She thought it was a good arrangement but they clearly didn’t. She honestly didn’t even know what they wanted from her anymore.</p><p>The Doctor tried to shuffle her feet so she wouldn’t trip over one of the rocks Yaz had mentioned but her ankle really wasn’t happy with that. It wasn’t broken but she probably had a nasty sprain. Really it needed ice to stop it swelling but there was no chance of that here.  She took another few tentative steps, her confidence growing until she smacked her shoulder into a tree which caused her to stumble into a rock and once again land on the floor, giving her already painful ankle a second wrench for good measure. She allowed her head to drop into knees and muffle her howl of frustration.</p><p>Yaz took it as her cue to move in. She walked over, trampling on sticks to announce her presence. “Boys have lit a fire, are you coming?” she asked, taking the decision to ignore the Doctor’s childish behaviour. Now was not the time to start a fight. The Doctor looked visibly shaken but she quickly smoothed it into a more neutral expression as she looked up to where Yaz was standing over her, holding out a hand and allowing Yaz to pull her to her feet and taking her elbow.</p><p>Yaz walked more quickly than she had earlier in the day and without the reassuring chatter she had kept up then. She had managed to describe everything of importance and chat generally while still giving the Doctor the cues she needed to walk safely. She was still giving her cues but her tone was clipped, no extra details and she was practically radiating tension. The Doctor was trying very hard not to limp but the faster pace wasn’t helping. It wasn’t long before the Doctor could make out the voices of Ryan and Graham and hear the distinct crackle of an early fire. Their voices stopped as she and Yaz grew closer and Yaz silently guided her to sit on what felt like a tree log.</p><p>The Doctor hadn’t realised how cold she was until the heat from the flames started to warm her. She was sure she had bruises beginning to form after all the times she had fallen that day. She took the wax tablet of food and bottle of water that was pressed into her hands by Yaz with a muttered thanks and heard Yaz move away again. She was alone on the log, the other three sounded like they were on the other side of the fire. They couldn’t get far enough away from her apparently. She tried to pretend she wasn’t hurt by their actions, but she was.</p><p>There was no light hearted banter around the fire that night. Before the Doctor had managed more than a few mouthfuls of very boring salad flavoured tablet, Yaz had asked her permission to get the tents out of her pack. The Doctor nodded, Yaz really didn’t need to ask, they might be carrying one each but they were communal supplies rather than personal ones. She could hear Yaz and she thought Ryan making quick work of the tents while Graham, who was somewhere on her right, was slurping his tea.</p><p>“Tents are up Doc, I’m going to head to bed if you don’t mind?” he said a minute later.</p><p>The Doctor shook her head and wished him good night, making an effort to keep her voice cheerful but she was surprised, Graham was always polite and well mannered, holding old-fashioned values of earth, one of which was not leaving the table until everyone was finished. Admittedly there was no table but she was still eating and hadn’t even touched her tea.</p><p>Yaz’s voice came from somewhere over her left shoulder.</p><p>“Both boys have gone to bed, I want to head too, do you mind?” Yaz asked, her voice tentative.</p><p>The Doctor stood, abandoning the tasteless salad and downing the tea. “I’ll come too.” She said quickly, not particularly interested in sitting by the dying embers of a campfire by herself.</p><p>“Do you need to seal the boys’ tent?” Yaz asked.</p><p>“Yeah” she gritted her teeth “can you?..” she asked, her voice full of embarrassment.</p><p>Yaz offered the Doctor her arm once again, leading her silently over to the boys tent where she did her thing with the sonic and brought them back to their own, crawling in first and moving out of the Doctor’s way as she did the zip.</p><p>Yaz twisted out of her bra without taking her top off again which was a bit ridiculous considering the circumstances and dropped it at the end of their tent with the packs and her boots before wriggling into her cosy sleeping bag.</p><p>“You aren’t seriously going to get into your sleeping bag with your boots on are you? They’re filthy.” Yaz asked the Doctor.</p><p>The Doctor paused, she had indeed been about to do just that. She was worried if she took her boots off now her ankle would swell even more than it already had and she wouldn’t get them back on in the morning.</p><p>“I like my boots” she protested, trying to flash a winning smile but was really more of a pained grimace, her ankle was really painful now.</p><p>“I know you like your boots” said Yaz patiently “That doesn’t explain why you’re trying to wear them to sleep in.”</p><p>“Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Maybe my people always wear their boots to bed.” The Doctor argued sullenly.</p><p>“Don’t lie to me. Besides you spent half of last night kicking me, I’d really rather you did it without your boots on.” She said lightly.</p><p>The Doctor could hear how hard she was trying to smile. She slowly tugged her boots off, trying not to let on how much it hurt to do so, regretting her choice of cropped trousers for the first time since she had chosen them in Sheffield.</p><p>Yaz gasped. “When did that happen?” she asked. When the Doctor didn’t answer she answered herself. “I’ll assume it was when you jumped?”</p><p>She pulled her pack in close and rummaged in it for the same First Aid Kit she had used the night before, knowing there were strong bandages in there she could wrap it in.</p><p>“Why on earth didn’t you say something?” she asked incredulously.</p><p>The Doctor muttered something about being a burden and Yaz rolled her eyes.</p><p>“You’re black and blue, your ankle is twice as big as it should be and you’re clearly in pain and you didn’t think you should mention it? For crying out loud Doctor! Turn round and face me.”</p><p>“I don’t need…”</p><p>“Doctor for once in your life do as you’re told and turn round so I can strap your ankle before it gets any bigger.”</p><p>Slightly shocked at the sudden transformation of Yaz to PC Khan the Doctor slowly shifted around so she was facing Yaz. Yaz picked up her foot with surprising tenderness and prodded it lightly with her fingertips. She was supporting the Doctor’s ankle as she gently moved her foot in all directions while the Doctor hissed in pain.</p><p>“Don’t think you’ve broken it” she muttered, resting it briefly on her own lap while she fished supplies out of the First Aid Kit and then tightly wrapped the Doctor’s ankle with a support bandage and squeezed her toes to check it wasn’t too tight.</p><p>“Right, lie down, I want to prop your foot up on my pack and put some ice on it. Should have been done hours ago but better late than never.”</p><p>“You really don’t have…”</p><p>“Doctor I am really too tired to argue with you. Just humour me alright?”</p><p>The Doctor flopped down, huffing dramatically and Yaz very gently rested her injured ankle on top of the pack and spent a moment figuring out how to turn the instant hot/cold pack on and cold. She rested it on the Doctor’s ankle, impressed when it instantly moulded to her shape so provide the best coverage.</p><p>She settled down in her own comfy sleeping bag, now too annoyed to sleep. The Doctor might be used to being independent but if she didn’t stop working against them and herself she was going to get someone far more seriously hurt than a sprained ankle. She rolled over, facing the wall of the tent and away from the Doctor.</p><p>“Hey Yaz?”</p><p>“What?” she asked, instantly regretting her snappish tone.</p><p>“Thanks.” The Doctor’s voice was tentative.</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm a worse chess player than Yaz so don't shout at me if I got it wrong!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Yaz woke up it was still dark out. She had no idea what time it was or how long she had been asleep though she remembered the Doctor saying that night lasted a long time here. She was lying on her side, facing the wall of the tent and she cautiously rolled onto her back. She didn’t quite managing to stifle a groan as her muscles screamed in protest after all the walking and crashing into a tree  from the day before.</p><p>“Yaz, what’s the matter?” the Doctor asked urgently.</p><p>“Nothing, just sore muscles from yesterday.”</p><p>The Doctor looked at her suspiciously but didn’t press any further.</p><p>How long was I asleep?”</p><p>“About nine hours or so. Probably another four left of darkness before we can leave the tent safely.”</p><p>Yaz swallowed. What was she supposed to do in a tiny tent with an incredibly tetchy, blind Doctor for four hours? She would rather be in here with a wasps nest and poke it with a sharp stick. When had their relationship turned so sour that she didn’t even want to hang out with the woman anymore?</p><p>“How’s your ankle?” Yaz asked cautiously. She still had it elevated in front of her but had clearly abandoned the ice-pack at some point during the night.</p><p>“It’s fine.” She bristled.</p><p>“Can I take a look?”</p><p>“For goodness sake Yaz, you’re not my mother!” she spat.</p><p>“No I’m not. I’m supposed to be your friend. Though I’m pretty sure you’ve forgotten the meaning of the word but even if you hate me that’s fine. But I don’t hate you so will you just let me look at your foot and then you can go back to ignoring me until daylight.”</p><p>
  <em>Well done Doctor, she’s been awake five whole minutes and you’re already annoying her. None of them would be in this mess if it wasn’t for you, the least you could do is be civil.  </em>
</p><p>The Doctor let out an impatient sigh through her nose but turned round to face Yaz who caught her ankle and guided it to rest on her knee.</p><p>The Doctor could feel her unwrap the bandage and bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from crying out when Yaz manipulated her foot before wrapping it back up again.</p><p>“You’ve got a rainbow going on down there. Parts of it are healing to that gross greeney colour bruises go but the rest of it’s still blue and purple. If I were you I would put the ice-pack on it as it’s even bigger than it was last night but, as you have already told me, I’m not your mother so do what you want.”</p><p>As soon as Yaz had strapped the bandage back in place the Doctor swung her leg back round to stretch it out in front of her though she didn’t elevate it again. Yaz watched her for a moment as she patted the sleeping bag, frowning at it like it had personally offended her or something.</p><p>“If you’re looking for the ice-pack it’s about six inches away from your right hip.” Yaz told her. The Doctor switched hands and found the ice-pack easily, draping it over her ankle which was still throbbing, before flopping down onto her back dramatically without acknowledging Yaz’s helpful assistance.</p><p>Yaz rolled her eyes and rummaged in her pack, she was sure she had seen a book in there somewhere. There was no way she would get any more sleep and there was a definite atmosphere in the tent now. Maybe she really was sharing with a wasps nest. A moment later she pulled two books out triumphantly. Even more impressively, they were both written in English. <em>The Time Traveller’s Wife </em>or <em>A Brief History of Time</em> by Stephen Hawking. It almost made Yaz want to laugh out loud with the irony and she opened the novel quietly.</p><p>The Doctor was a terrible fidget and kept banging into Yaz in the confines of the tiny tent as she rummaged through her pockets for something. She finally emerged with a white paper bag which rustled as she pulled out a sweet, she didn’t offer Yaz one. Almost instantly the tent was filled with a strong scent of ginger as the Doctor played with the sweet in her mouth, it must be really strong to stink the tent out like this Yaz thought, wrinkling her nose slightly at the smell.</p><p>The book was confusing and Yaz was struggling to concentrate on it as the Doctor continued to fidget beside her, the woman had always been a bit restless but this was ridiculous.</p><p>“Doctor can’t you be still for like, five minutes?” Yaz asked in exasperation as she somehow got the Doctor’s uninjured foot in her stomach, knocking the book from her hands and losing her place.</p><p>“Sorry” she mumbled, slipping a second sweet into her mouth and pulling herself into a sitting position. “I’m not very good at being still.”</p><p>“Funnily enough I’d already noticed that.” Yaz commented drily.</p><p>“The TARDIS hates it too” she shrugged. “Especially when I break stuff just so I can fix it.”</p><p>“Yeah I could see that that would be annoying.” Yaz agreed, more than slightly surprised at how much the Doctor had mellowed in the last half hour.</p><p>“Do you play chess?” asked the Doctor suddenly, changing the topic entirely.</p><p>“I know the theory, my dad tried to teach me loads of times, but I could never really put it altogether.”</p><p>“There’s a chess set in my pack if you want to find it. I can teach you to play properly if you like?” she shrugged like it didn’t matter to her either way but Yaz had the impression that it mattered to her very much, she just wasn’t sure why.</p><p>“Yeah why not. You’ve only got four hours though and I’m pretty terrible.” She warned as she rummaged through the Doctor’s pack until she found a small wooden box which unfolded like a piece of origami to make the board, all the pieces fitting neatly inside.</p><p>“Do you know how to set it up?” the Doctor asked.</p><p>“Maybe, I think I remember that much.” Yaz said, picking up a few pieces, surprised to find that both they and the board appeared to have magnets in to stop the pieces sliding around the way some earth travel sets did.</p><p>Yaz spent a minute sliding the pieces onto the board as best she could, she wasn’t entirely confident that she had them in the right place, but it looked sort of correct.</p><p>“I think I’ve done it.” Yaz announced “But my dad gave up when I was about eleven so I haven’t done this since then.”</p><p>The Doctor reached out tentatively until her hands found the edge of the board. She had turned around so she and Yaz were sitting opposite each other, her injured ankle stretched out to the side and the other foot tucked up underneath her.</p><p>“You have all the pawns in the front rows?” she asked.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m not quite that bad.”</p><p>The Doctor nodded and Yaz watched as her fingertips carefully explored each piece on the board.</p><p>“Am I right in thinking the white queen is on a black square and the black queen is on a white square?” she asked.</p><p>“Yeah” said Yaz, impressed.</p><p>“Then you need to swap your King and Queen round, your Queen always sits on her own colour. You’ve also got the rooks and knights the wrong way round.” She explained, fixing the offending pieces on her own side of the board.</p><p>“Do you remember how the pieces move?”</p><p>“Yeah, I think. Pawns go forward one square at a time except the first go when they can move two squares and if they’re taking a piece when they can move diagonally. The knight moves in an L shape, the Bishop can move as many squares as it likes but only diagonally, the rook can move as many squares as it likes but only forwards or backwards, the King can go one square in any direction and the Queen can move as many squares as it likes in any direction?”</p><p>“Well done Yaz, you remember more than you thought.” The Doctor praised. “Which colour are my pieces?” she asked, a pink tinge coming to her cheeks.</p><p>“White. I didn’t want to go first” Yaz admitted.</p><p>The Doctor moved her first pawn.</p><p>“You want to try and get control of the centre of the board” the Doctor explained patiently. “Move your pawns but protect your King.”</p><p>The Doctor heard Yaz move a piece. “You’re going to have to tell me what you’re doing so I can keep a picture of the board in my head.” The Doctor pointed out small letters and numbers carved into the sides of the board.</p><p>“Pawn to D4” Yaz announced which the Doctor acknowledged with a small nod of her head.</p><p>For the next couple of hours the Doctor talked Yaz through three games of chess, none of which she won but by the end of it she had definite brain ache.</p><p>“I don’t think my brain can hack anymore” Yaz said as the Doctor called checkmate for the third time. “You’re really good, why did it take you so long to beat me?”</p><p>The Doctor gave a small chuckle. “Yaz, unless you got really lucky I could easily beat you in less than eight moves but what would be the fun in that? Plus, you wouldn’t learn anything other than what it’s like to lose.”</p><p>Yaz honestly couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her friend laugh, or even give a genuine smile now that she thought about it.</p><p>“Well you’re a really good teacher.” She had forgotten what a good teacher the Doctor was, it had been so long since the woman had been in the same places as any of the rest of them long enough to tell them anything really.</p><p>“I used to be a teacher. I was a lecturer at a university for more than seventy years.”</p><p>“I can’t imagine you staying in one place that long” Yaz said honestly.</p><p>“Meh… time ship.” The Doctor answered looking guilty. “What were you doing before we played chess?”</p><p>“Reading until you kicked the book out of hands.”</p><p>“Where on earth did you find a book?”</p><p>“There were two in my pack.” Yaz explained, telling her what they were.</p><p>“Oh I remember those. My friend Romana was reading <em>The Time Travellers Wife</em>!”</p><p>“So by process of elimination, you were reading Hawking. What on earth does a Time Lord who can presumably witness any moment of time want with a history book?”</p><p>“Mostly to laugh at the mistakes” the Doctor admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. “Besides I was trapped under a collapsed building so really I was just passing the time.”</p><p>“Course you were” Yaz said, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to get dressed now, the suns just starting to come up.”</p><p>She dug out her bra and trousers, pulled them on quickly and laced up her hiking boots. The Doctor had managed to put on one of her customary brown boots that she always wore but was struggling with the second one.</p><p>“See this is exactly why I shouldn’t have taken them off last night” she said crossly, her bad mood evidently having returned.</p><p>“And I could argue that that’s exactly the reason you should.” Yaz said, watching her struggle to loosen the laces further. Eventually she had them as slack as they would go and she slowly eased her foot into them, wincing slightly as she tucked the laces inside her boot instead of tying them.</p><p>“Can you even stand?” Yaz asked concerned as the Doctor used her sonic on the zip of the tent.</p><p>“Yaz stop fussing I’m fine. Go and make yourself useful by letting the boys out of their tent.” She practically threw the sonic at her.</p><p>Yaz swallowed her retort and stalked off towards the tent. She hoped the Doctor wasn’t going to be like this all day. The bad moods were one thing but the mood swings were already giving her whiplash.</p><p>Yaz unlocked the tent and opened it, relieved to see the boys were awake and in the middle of a game of cards.</p><p>“Alright cockle?” greeted Graham cheerfully as Yaz poked her head in.</p><p>“Morning. Who’s winning?”</p><p>“Grandad” whined Ryan. “How’s the Doctor doing?”</p><p>“Like a bear with a sore head” Yaz said quietly, mindful of the Doctor’s considerably better than human hearing. “She’s given herself a nasty sprained ankle when she jumped last night. And this morning one minute she's snarling at me and the next she's teaching me to play chess.” Yaz complained.</p><p>“Aw mate I don’t envy you having to share a tent with her. Not exactly a ray of sunshine these days, is she?”</p><p>“Come on Son, cut her some slack, the woman’s just gone blind.”</p><p>“Yeah but this has been going on for way longer than that Grandad. Ever since that whole thing with Barton and O. She hasn’t talked to us since that night when we finally got her to tell us where she’s from.”</p><p>“Was anyone else a bit scared of her that night?” asked Yaz. “She looked like she would rather chuck us out into the Time Vortex than answer another single question and then she just walked off and we’ve barely seen her since.”</p><p>“Try not to take it personally kids. Woman like that, I reckon she’s got far more on her mind than we can ever understand. If she wanted rid of us she’d tell us. Or drop off us off at home and just not come back. The fact that she hasn’t makes me think she needs us and not just because she can’t see where she’s going. She’ll tell us in her own good time.”</p><p>Yaz looked at him, Graham was a good man, an excellent Grandad to all of them, not just Ryan and she took a breath, mentally preparing herself to go and see if the Doctor had managed to stand up on her dodgy ankle yet.</p><p>The Doctor was sitting at the mouth of their tent, her head in her hands. She had already packed up both sleeping bags, the chess set and the first aid kit and put them away, both packs leaning neatly against the tent.</p><p>“I have your sonic” Yaz announced carefully. The Doctor held out her hand and Yaz handed it to her, watching as she tucked it safely into its usual pocket.</p><p>“Can you walk?” Yaz asked.</p><p>Using one of the packs for leverage the Doctor pushed herself into a standing position, putting all her weight on her uninjured left leg. She took a cautious step which her ankle did not appreciate and sent her crashing into Yaz who caught her easily.</p><p>“I’ll take that as a no then.”</p><p>“I’m fine Yaz” she argued through gritted teeth.</p><p>“Course you are. That’s why I’m currently holding you upright.”</p><p>With a great effort the Doctor pulled herself away from Yaz and the security she offered and made her way over to where she could hear one of the boys lighting the fire, limping heavily.</p><p>Yaz watched her go, there was no way she should be walking on it if it was causing her that much pain but she was an adult who could make her own terrible decisions and Yaz caught up with her easily to guide her round the tree she was about to walk into. Not that the Doctor seemed to appreciate it.</p><p>They sat round the fire, mostly in silence as they ate their breakfasts. Yaz had cheese and crackers which she was fine with as a slightly bizarre but acceptable breakfast food but Ryan had ended up with pavlova and she honestly didn’t know how he could stomach it so early in the morning. They didn’t hang around when they were finished eating. Graham and Ryan went to deal with the two tents which were still up while the Doctor burnt their rubbish on the campfire and extinguished it while Yaz tidied up, making sure they had left nothing behind.</p><p>“Right!” said Graham cheerfully, clapping his hands together. “Follow the river yeah?”</p><p>“Yep” replied the Doctor, twisting around when she heard Yaz approach and taking her elbow again.</p><p>Their pace was considerably slower today as the Doctor continued to limp heavily but mercifully the terrain was largely easier to navigate.</p><p>The forest floor was relatively smooth though there were a lot of narrow bits to squeeze through and so many low hanging branches and vines that the Doctor was walking with one hand held above and in front of her head so she didn’t get hit with anything unexpected in the face.</p><p>The four of them were quiet and apart from Yaz’s verbal cues to the Doctor there was very little conversation between them. She was still limping and was now also leaning on Yaz for extra support as they walked.</p><p>The river was still on their right, they could just about hear it burbling away though they couldn’t see it.</p><p>The Doctor stopped suddenly, pulling Yaz back towards her and leaning heavily on her arm so she could speak quietly into her ear.</p><p>“Yaz, Ryan and Graham are in front of us right?”</p><p>“Yes of course” Yaz reassured her. “I would tell you if they weren’t Doctor.”</p><p>The Doctor shook her head impatiently. “No, if they’re in front of us, then who’s behind us.”</p><p>Dread shot through Yaz’s body. “What do you mean who’s behind us.”</p><p>“Don’t look but I’m sure something is following us.”</p><p>“What sort of something?”</p><p>“I can’t be certain but if I had to guess I would say something with two legs. Can you really not hear it?”</p><p>“No.” Yaz found that she was whispering.</p><p>Without warning, the Doctor collapsed to the ground, clutching her ankle and crying out loudly in pain.</p><p>Yaz dropped down beside her, aware that the boys were running back towards them.</p><p>“Doctor! What’s the matter? What’s happened?” she cried.</p><p>The Doctor continued to clutch at herself dramatically until she felt Ryan and Graham touching her and could hear them talking to her.</p><p>She started sniffing loudly as if she was crying though there were no tears coming from her eyes.</p><p>“Doc what the hell is going on? What in blazes have you done to yourself this time?” Graham asked.</p><p>“My ankle!” she howled loudly, behaving like an overly dramatic eight year old with a scraped knee. “We’re being followed” she hissed in between her dramatics.</p><p>“By what?” Ryan asked. “Is it one of those monkey things.”</p><p>“Doubt it, sounds too heavy” she said quietly before letting out another howl.</p><p>“What’s that got to do with your ankle Doc? I’m confused.”</p><p>“Nothing Graham! I’m fine! I just needed you two back here without causing suspicion because I’m sure we’re being watched.” She sniffed and wiped her dry eyes on the back of her hand.</p><p>“What’s the plan?”</p><p>“Same as it always is. We run!” She let out another dramatic cry.</p><p>“Doctor you can barely walk!” Yaz pointed out.</p><p>“I’m fine Yaz.” She said, brushing off Yaz’s concerns. “Right help me up, I’m gonna scream but I’m fine, when I stop screaming we run. Don’t want whoever or whatever it is to suspect. Everyone understand?”</p><p>Ryan and Yaz hooked her under her arms and dragged her to her feet while she shouted and hopped dramatically, sneakily grabbing Yaz’s elbow in preparation to run simultaneously.</p><p>“RUN!” she shouted, already pushing Yaz’s arm forward.</p><p>She could hear Ryan and Graham crashing through the trees in front of them as she clung tightly to Yaz’s arm, tripping and stumbling over the uneven ground but mercifully staying on her feet. She had her other arm above her head but it wasn’t stopping her from getting leaves and vines to her face.</p><p>Normally she liked the adrenaline of running. She was great at running, even with these short legs but she was realising that she preferred to lead from the front and relying on Graham and Ryan to navigate their path to safety and Yaz to stop her from falling flat on her face or crashing into one of the trees was making her feel distinctly uncomfortable.</p><p>Without breaking her stride Yaz put her arm behind her back and the Doctor recognised her signal that the path had become narrower. She moved behind Yaz, sliding her hand down so she was holding Yaz’s wrist instead as they continued to run. This was terrifying.</p><p>They ran and ran, the sounds of whoever was following them were fading away. The path had narrowed again and she swore loudly as she wacked her elbow on a tree. She was picking up way more injuries being blind this time around than she remembered from last time.</p><p>She felt Yaz change direction suddenly and then she was being pulled down towards the ground. Yaz’s hands were tugging her in close.</p><p>“We’re behind a rock fall, Ryan and Graham are behind me, you’re closest to the entrance” Yaz breathed into her ear. “Can you still hear something?”</p><p>The Doctor concentrated. She could hear Graham struggling to for breath, Ryan was breathing hard and Yaz already had her own breathing under control.</p><p>As the fam’s breathing quietened the Doctor’s sensitive ears were able to pick up the footsteps again. She squeezed Yaz’s knee, hoping to pass on the message silently, whatever it was, it was close. She desperately wanted to stick her head out and have a look. She had forgotten how useless she felt when she was blind.</p><p>She kept listening carefully, it was still outside but had lost their trail. Thankfully it didn’t seem to be able to track them by scent otherwise it would have found them easily. A few minutes later she heard it give up and go back the way they had come from. She motioned for the fam to stay put and they stayed concealed for another twenty minutes before she crawled out of their hiding place.</p><p>“What the hell was that?” asked Ryan.</p><p>“No idea. Did anyone get a look at it?”</p><p>None of them had and she bit back the temptation to groan in annoyance at them. It wasn’t their fault that she couldn’t see but seriously, six working eyes between them and not one of them had seen it?</p><p>“Doc, not to alarm you but those monkey things are back, they’re over our heads.”</p><p>“Okay we can talk about this later, lets go we need to find somewhere to camp for the night. Has the sun set yet?”</p><p>“It’s hard to tell, it’s pretty dark in here anyway. I can see where I’m going just about but it’s getting cold too so probably.”</p><p>“Guys lets move, those monkey things are giving me the creeps” Yaz interjected, offering the Doctor her elbow once more.</p><p>The Doctor nodded and allowed Yaz to navigate for her through the forest. Her ankle was incredibly painful again and it was taking a lot of effort not to let the pain show on her face. The sprint through the forest had been the last thing it had needed and they had to walk for another hour before they found a small clearing that was just big enough to pitch the two tents and light a small campfire for the kettle and boil fresh water.</p><p>Ryan went off to the river to collect water and then helped Graham find enough sticks to light a small fire while Yaz and the Doctor pitched the tents and rummaged in Ryan’s bag for four blocks of food.</p><p>The atmosphere around the fire was marginally less tense than it had been the last few meals though not as relaxed as it used to be. The fam still felt like they were walking on eggshells around the Doctor who was liable to be set off by the tiniest thing with no discernible pattern.</p><p>Graham did his best to keep them entertained by doing impressions of some of his most quirky passengers and Yaz and Ryan laughed appreciatively while the Doctor sat in silence, holding her mug of tea tightly.</p><p>“Alright down there Doc?” Graham asked bravely.</p><p>“Fine Graham” she said tightly.</p><p>“You sure love? Those were some of my best impressions.”</p><p>“Maybe they’re funnier when you can see them.” She said, standing up suddenly. “We should get into our tents, we’ll be safe in there.”</p><p>“Can you hear something Doctor?” asked Yaz.</p><p>She shook her head but didn’t look convinced.</p><p>Graham took her over to the boys tent while Ryan hugged Yaz, wishing her luck with the Doctor’s prickly mood and told her to send up a distress flare if she needed it. The Doctor soniced the boys zip, locking them in safely before following Yaz to their own tent. It definitely smelled better than the boys did already.</p><p>She crawled in after Yaz, pausing for a moment and listening hard before sealing the tent for the night.</p><p>“You sure you can’t hear anything Doctor?” Yaz asked, already relieving herself of her boots which she was starting to really hate.</p><p>“No I don’t think so. There’s a lot of noises in this forest, it’s hard to be sure. You don’t need to worry though, nothings going to get through the tent. It has similar shields to the TARDIS.”</p><p>“I’m not worried, I’m with you” Yaz said simply.</p><p>“Yaz I very much doubt I could find the boys tent without crashing or falling flat on my face.”</p><p>“So? You’re still the most capable person I’ve ever met. How many times have you told us, brains over brawn every time.”</p><p>“I hate being quoted back to” she grumbled, pulling off her coat and braces.</p><p>Yaz smirked to herself as she dug through her bag to find the ice-pack, the Doctor had just pulled off her boots and hadn’t quite managed to hide the pained expression on her face as she did so.</p><p>“Ice pack” Yaz warned, brushing it against the Doctor’s hand for her to take.</p><p>“Thanks” she muttered quietly. She grabbed her own pack and put it at the end of her sleeping bag and resting her injured leg on top of it. She laid the ice-pack on her ankle, breathing a soft sigh of relief as she did so.</p><p>Yaz lay down in her own sleeping bag, pulling it snugly around her shoulders.</p><p>“What do you do?” Yaz asked suddenly.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“When we sleep? You don’t seem to sleep as much as we do.”</p><p>“No I don’t. You lot really don’t live long enough to spend about half of it unconscious. I do different stuff, TARDIS repairs, read, explore.”</p><p>“Oh. What will you do tonight?”</p><p>“Don’t worry about me Yaz, I’m fine.”</p><p>Yaz yawned, she couldn’t help herself. “You know” she said sleepily. “None of us believe you when you say that.”</p><p>Yaz could literally see the Doctor’s posture change from relaxed to tense. She was well and truly cornered with nowhere to go and she looked it.</p><p>“So you’ve been talking about me.”</p><p>“Yeah, we’re worried about you.” Said Yaz softly. “We’d rather talk to you but any time we try you run off.”</p><p>“Goodnight Yaz.” She said curtly but there was an undertone of anger and Yaz sighed. It wasn’t worth pushing any more tonight. She rolled over away from the Doctor again. It felt strange to miss your best friend when she was sitting right next to you.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The streets of the Citadel where she used to play as a child were crumbling around her dangerously as she cleared the rubble out of her path. The ever present smoke clawed at her lungs making her cough and wheeze. She called out again, hoping beyond hope that this time, someone would answer her. </em>
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  <em>She turned around abruptly and started following a new path. The one she had been avoiding because knowing it would make it true. </em>
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  <em>She slowly, apprehensively, pushed open the door that was hanging off its hinges. It squealed loudly in protest, a sound loud enough to wake the dead and yet it didn’t.</em>
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  <em>There was so much smoke and ash in her lungs now she could barely breathe as she walked into the twisted shell that had once been her home. </em>
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  <em>They were dead.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>All dead. </em>
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  <em>She screamed. </em>
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  <em>Tried to run away from the image that was now burned into her brain forever more.</em>
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  <em>Her knees gave way beneath her as she struggled to claw oxygen into her body, the room was spinning around her. </em>
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  <em>Maybe it was better this way. </em>
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  <em>She would be with them. </em>
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</p><p>Yasmin Khan was woken very suddenly by a horrific wailing sound. She sat bolt upright, eyes unaccustomed to the gloom, her sleep filled brain trying to catch up with whatever the hell was going on. It took her a moment to realise the noise (a howl? a shriek? a scream?) was coming from the Doctor who was lying next to her, thrashing violently in her sleeping bag.</p><p>“Doctor! Hey! Wake up!” Yaz called to her loudly, shaking the Doctor’s shoulder.</p><p>She was rewarded for her efforts by the Doctor’s hand making a solid connection with her face and instantly she let out a groan, feeling blood dripping from her nose already.</p><p>She ignored it, shouting at the Doctor again to wake her up as blood slowly dribbled it’s way down to her lips.</p><p>The Doctor continued to make the God-awful noise and Yaz gave up trying to be nice about it. Wherever the Doctor was inside her head was clearly causing her terrible anguish and Yaz pulled her water bottle from the end of the tent and poured some on the Doctor’s face.</p><p>The effect was instantaneous as the Doctor sat bolt upright, massaging her chest and gasping for breath, narrowly avoiding taking Yaz out for the second time in the space of five minutes.</p><p>“Tomorrow morning I’d rather you just set an alarm clock” Yaz grumbled thickly, rummaging in her bag for a tissue to stem the bleeding. Finding what she wanted and eyes finally accustomed to the dark she realised the Doctor hadn’t moved.</p><p>She was hunched over, gasping and wheezing as she tried and failed to get her breathing under control.</p><p>“Yaz! Doc! Is everything alright over there?” came Graham’s panicked voice from his own tent.</p><p>Yaz looked at the Doctor, she looked in no state to respond.</p><p>“We’re fine thanks Graham! There was a spider in my sleeping bag! Sorry I woke you, go back to sleep!” Yaz answered, trying to sound cheerful.</p><p>Yaz cautiously moved to sit in front of the Doctor.  </p><p>“Doctor can you hear me?” Yaz asked softly. She didn’t reach out to touch her again after her last attempt. She hadn’t reacted at all to Graham and Yaz shouting at each other.</p><p>The Doctor either couldn’t or wouldn’t respond.</p><p>Is she having a panic attack? Yaz thought to herself incredulously. She didn’t seem the type, a bundle of energy, and yet…  </p><p>She thought frantically about the different techniques she knew for managing a panic attach, they all seemed to be so visual.</p><p>She needed to ground her.</p><p>And without her sight, they were going to have to do it through touch.</p><p>“Doctor? I’m going to take hold of your hand okay?”</p><p>There was still no response, she flinched when Yaz took her hand, but she didn’t pull away. Yaz stretched the Doctor’s fingers out to make a flat palm and rested it on her own chest, holding it in place.</p><p>“We’re going to breathe together Doctor. In for five, hold for five, out for five.”</p><p>Yaz took some slow, exaggerated breaths in and out, the Doctor should have been able to feel her chest rise and fall under her hand but she was making little to no effort to join in and her breathing was becoming more ragged.</p><p>“Doctor, I think you’re having a panic attack. I know it’s frightening and it’s hard, but I need you to concentrate on breathing okay? Feel my chest rise and fall under your hand and try to match your breaths to mine.”</p><p>Yaz took more breaths and this time it felt like the Doctor was attempting to breathe with her. Her face was twisted with anxiety and Yaz wondered if this had ever happened to her before. She had had several as a teenager and they were terrifying, she clearly remembered feeling like she was going to die.</p><p>“Well done Doctor, you’re doing really well.” Yaz coached.</p><p>Thankfully, the Doctor seemed to be coming down from hers now as she was no longer gasping and wheezing and the death grip she had had on her own knee was easing.</p><p>Suddenly, as if she had just become aware of it, the Doctor let her hand drop from where it had been resting on Yaz’s chest, drawing herself in in tightly: her knees pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around them like she was physically holding herself together.</p><p>Even in the gloom of the night Yaz could tell that she was ghostly pale.</p><p>She had rested her cheek on her knees, facing away from Yaz. Despite travelling together for about two years by her best estimate, on the TARDIS it was hard to tell, the Doctor was always strong, full of life and energy. Brave, confident and self-sufficient to a fault regardless of whether you were thinking about her before their run in with O or after. But now, Yaz thought, she looked… vulnerable, small. Had she always been so small? She was very slightly taller than Yaz but her larger than life personality made her seem bigger. But seeing her sit like this, curled up like a child, her frame looked tiny. Actually, looking at her properly, Yaz realised that she had lost a lot of weight and she hadn’t exactly had much to spare to begin with. But now she had noticed… her cheeks were definitely a little hollowed, her elbows sticking out a little too much and the delicate bones of her spine visible through her t-shirt while there were deep, purpley-grey smudges beneath her eyes. How had she not noticed this before?</p><p>“Are you alright?” Yaz asked, mentally chastising herself at the ridiculousness of the question but unable to think of anything else to say and not able to stand the silence any more.</p><p>“I’m fine Yaz.”</p><p>Well, Yaz supposed, a ridiculous question deserved a ridiculous answer.</p><p>“You can tell me you know. If you’re not fine I mean. Nobody can be fine all the time, it’s not healthy.”</p><p>“You should go back to sleep” said the Doctor rudely.</p><p>“I’m awake now, think my body has had enough sleep for the night. Any idea how long till daylight?”</p><p>“Seven hours give or take. You’ve probably had about seven hours of sleep already.”</p><p>She still hadn’t turned around to face Yaz.</p><p>Yaz knew there was no way that her body would allow her to go back to sleep when she had just had seven hours followed by such a rude awakening but she had to suppress a groan at the thought of the two of them cooped up in the tiny tent together until daylight.</p><p>The Doctor pulled another one of her strong ginger sweets out of her bottomless pockets and popped it in her mouth.</p><p>“You’ve had a real thing for ginger recently.” Yaz commented.</p><p>The Doctor’s head whipped around as if she had been punched in the face.</p><p>“What do you mean?” her voice was harsh and accusing.</p><p>“It was just an observation, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that you always seem to have a ginger beer in your hands when we’re on the TARDIS these days or else you’re eating those ginger sweets. Or munching on ginger biscuits. Did the custard cream dispenser cut you off again.”</p><p>The Doctor scrunched her brow, choosing to ignore Yaz’s last comment. “Why do you sound funny this morning?”</p><p>“Because I’m holding my nose.”</p><p>“Why? Is that a thing humans normally do in the middle of the night?”</p><p>“No, it’s a thing humans do when they get woken up with a fist in their face.” Yaz said flippantly, regretting her choice of words almost instantly when she saw the look on the Doctor’s face.</p><p>“I hurt you?” she asked, a look of dismay on her face.</p><p>“You were asleep, it’s not a big deal.” Yaz tried to brush her concern away, already sorry she had mentioned it.</p><p>“Where are you hurt?”</p><p>“It’s nothing Doctor, I’m fine.”</p><p>“Yaz” the Doctor started, gritting her teeth, she hated sounding so pathetic, so needy. “I can’t see, if you’re going to help me you don’t get to pick and choose what to tell me.” She sucked in a breath. “Tell me where I hurt you.”</p><p>“I’m not entirely sure how you managed it, but I got the heel of your hand in my eye and your elbow in my nose. It’s my fault” she added quickly, seeing the look on the Doctor’s face. “You were a bit… flaily, I shouldn’t have been in your personal space.”</p><p>“I’m really sorry Yaz.”</p><p>“Don’t be, it was an accident.”</p><p>“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep so close to someone. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”</p><p>She started rummaging in Yaz’s pack though Yaz wasn’t sure what she was looking for. She frowned as she realised what the Doctor had just said and she caught the other woman’s wrist lightly.</p><p>“Does this happen often?” she asked softly.</p><p>“I don’t sleep very often.”</p><p>“But by your own admission you do sleep occasionally. Is this why you don’t sleep often? Because you have nightmares?”</p><p>The Doctor swallowed, the vision of Gallifrey’s destruction still burned behind her retinas. Of course she had gone blind but still got to see that in her dreams. She pulled her arm away from where Yaz was holding it, ignoring her question.</p><p>Why did they have to ask questions all the time? Couldn’t they see that she really didn’t want to talk about it? She couldn’t bear the way they looked at her sometimes since the Master had come back, the pity in their eyes. Didn’t even want to think about how they looked at her now she had gone blind. She knew they talked about her when they thought she couldn’t hear them.</p><p>Finally she found the First Aid Kit she had been looking for and opened it, glad that it was well organised and she could find the small, cool metal jar she was looking for with ease.</p><p>“What’s that?” Yaz asked nervously.</p><p>“It’s for your eye, it’ll stop the bruising.”</p><p>“Then put it on your ankle, I don’t need it!”</p><p>“My ankle is sprained, all this is gonna do is stop the internal bleeding that causes the bruises, won’t do a thing for the muscle damage. Now will you let me help you?” her tone was sharper than she meant it to be and she winced at it internally.</p><p>It actually would help, stop it hurting at least but the fam might need it. She had no idea how long they would be doing this ridiculous camping and if one of them got hurt and she had wasted it on herself… well she couldn’t allow it. They were far more important.</p><p>“Fine” agreed Yaz with a small exhale, clearly not too impressed.</p><p>“Which eye?”</p><p>“The right one.”</p><p>The Doctor unscrewed the jar and sniffed it first to double check its contents. Satisfied she scooped a blob of a thick blue paste onto her fingers and tentatively reached out to find Yaz’s body.</p><p>Her fingers connected with Yaz’s knee first and she flushed at the thought of having to trail her hands up Yaz’s body to find her face, until Yaz took hold of her hand and guided it to the right spot without comment. She carefully smoothed the paste, that smelled like spearmint, over Yaz’s eye and around the surrounding area.</p><p>It was so cold it felt like ice working its way under her skin and Yaz found herself shivering involuntarily. As she did so, the Doctor withdrew her hand instantly as though she had been burned, offering another apology.</p><p>“Stop apologising, it doesn’t matter” Yaz told her for the fourth time. “How long do I need to keep this stuff on?”</p><p>“Your skin will absorb it, should only take a couple of minutes.” She shrugged. “How’s your nose?”</p><p>“I think the bleeding has stopped.”</p><p>“Is it broken?”</p><p>“What? No, course not. Just a bit bloody. I broke my nose during a combat training session last year, this doesn’t feel anything like that. Doesn’t really hurt at all.”</p><p>Okay so she was lying about that last bit, but she couldn’t stand the look of guilt on the Doctor’s face.</p><p>Yaz allowed herself to lie back down on her sleeping bag but the Doctor stayed where she was, rigid and tense, her third ginger sweet of the morning in her mouth.</p><p>“I used to have nightmares you know.” Yaz said softly.</p><p>The Doctor didn’t respond but Yaz took her lack of interrupting as encouragement.</p><p>“When Nolee went off with Izzie, they used to threaten me. Told everyone at school I’m gay even though I’m not generally out. Threatened to tell my parents, they’re pretty liberal in their views but I know having a gay daughter isn’t something they’ll accept easily. I was terrified all the time they would find out and kick me out so even when the bullying got really bad I never told anyone, couldn’t take the risk. When I got beaten up I pretended I had fallen, it was more verbal anyway. I had horrific nightmares that my parents would find out and kick me out of the house. Eventually it got so bad I tried to… end it all. Sonya stopped me but the nightmares kept going.”</p><p>“So what happened next?” the Doctor found herself asking despite herself.</p><p>“You crashed through a train roof in Sheffield and I ran away” Yaz said simply. “I thought that if I was travelling with you it wouldn’t matter if they found out.”</p><p>“And did they?”</p><p>“Find out? No. I’m still too scared to tell them. Even dated boys occasionally to fit in. Since Nolee, I’ve never actually told anyone. Except you. Ryan might have heard the rumours, but he’s never mentioned it.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t hide who you are inside Yaz, it’ll eat you up.”</p><p>“Pot calling kettle there Doctor.”</p><p>“What the hell is that supposed to mean.”</p><p>“Just that you never stop talking but you never say anything. Two years and we know basically nothing about you.</p><p>“Yaz will you stop acting like my fucking therapist for five minutes! I can’t listen to you any longer” she burst out angrily.</p><p>Stung, Yaz picked up the lousy book from the day before and rolled over away from the Doctor. She bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from crying, not wanting the Doctor to know how much she had hurt her.</p><p>What the hell was that for you idiot? She was only trying to help you. You keep treating them like that and they’ll walk off and leave you stranded and it would be entirely your own fault. Apologise to her. Before it gets any worse.</p><p>She tried, she really did, but the words kept getting stuck in her throat. She couldn’t seem to open her mouth these days without upsetting at least one member of her fam. Usually Yaz. Why did it have to be Yaz, who was always sweet, caring and unfailingly kind. The Doctor could picture her expression right now, like a puppy kicked by its master she thought cruelly and it just made her feel more guilty.</p><p>She thought she heard a sniff. Then she heard Yaz’s hand slap gently against her own cheek. Yaz was crying. You made Yasmin Khan cry, the best police officer you know, made of Sheffield steel and <em>you</em> made her cry.</p><p>You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve any of them.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Yaz spent most of the next few hours lying as still as she could, hoping to trick the Doctor into thinking she was asleep even though she knew it probably wouldn’t work. For her part, the Doctor pretended to believe her.</p><p>As soon as the sun began to brighten the sky Yaz collected their clothes from the end of the tent and handed the Doctor her pile, already pulling on her own as fast as she could, anxious to get out of the stifling atmosphere inside the tent. She waited impatiently, silently, as the Doctor eased her boot on over her injured ankle which, thanks to her refusal to rest it the day before, presumably hadn’t healed at all.</p><p>As soon as they were dressed the Doctor unlocked the tent with her sonic and without a word Yaz guided her over to the boy’s tent. She placed the Doctor’s hand on the tent pole, satisfied she would be able to take it from there, and promptly turned around and walked in the direction of the river. She needed a break and she wanted to splash her face before either of the boys saw she had been crying.</p><p>“Morning Doc!” said Graham cheerfully, emerging from the tent first, Ryan followed closely behind him.</p><p>He frowned when he saw Yaz walking away from them, her head was bowed and her posture suggested that all was not well.</p><p>“I’ll light a fire shall I?” offered Ryan, sharing a significant look with Graham about Yaz.</p><p>Graham wrapped an arm around the Doctor’s shoulders and steered her towards the fire, managing to successfully avoid the rocks littering the ground.</p><p>The Doctor decided she couldn’t be bothered to point out that while having someone guide her was never a pleasant experience, having someone push her from behind was just about the worst way to go about it and made her feel like she was about to be pushed off a cliff.</p><p>Ryan got the fire going easily, whatever the Doctor’s lighter was made from made short work of the sticks and they soon had the kettle going for tea and four of the now familiar wax packets for their breakfast. But Yaz still hadn’t returned.</p><p>“Is everything… alright Doctor?” he asked hesitantly. She hadn’t moved from where Graham had deposited her, making no effort to drink her tea, her face set and stone cold.</p><p>“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”</p><p>“Because Yaz hasn’t come back…”</p><p>The Doctor whipped her head around towards the river, rising to stand but Ryan put his arm on hers, stopping her.</p><p>“I’ll go and check on her” he offered evenly.</p><p>“Ryan I’m perfectly capable of…” she started, face pinched with indignation.</p><p>“I’m not saying that you’re not but you two have spent a lot of time together over the last few days, maybe she would like someone else to talk to for a change.” He walked off quickly before she could argue with him, slightly shocked at how much rage had shown on her face.</p><p>The Doctor sat down again angrily, hurling the remains of her breakfast onto the fire and didn’t quite manage to maintain a small cry of fury when she heard it land on a pile of leaves instead.</p><p>“You get pears again did you Doc?” asked Graham.</p><p>She cursed under her breath. She forgot Graham was still there.</p><p>She tried to ignore him, but she could feel him staring.</p><p> “What Graham?” she asked aggressively.</p><p>She thought she heard him shrug, the wool of his jumper rubbing against his collar.</p><p>“Use your words like a grown-up Graham. I can’t see when you shrug at me.”</p><p>Graham looked at her, her jaw was clenched and her hands were balled tightly into fists, her normally pale cheeks flushed. But Graham didn’t just see anger, she was in pain. He didn’t know what was causing it but judging by her behaviour recently she was in agony and was refusing to deal with it. And she was scared. And he was pretty sure it had little to do with her current situation. Whatever it was went much deeper than that, but she clearly didn’t feel able to tell them about it. He just wished she would tell somebody.</p><p>“Stop staring at me Graham, I don’t need your pity.”</p><p>“I don’t pity you Doc, I worry about you because somethings wrong and you won’t talk about it.”</p><p>She turned away from him and put two of the ginger sweets in her mouth. First Yaz and now Graham. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Ryan carefully picked his way down to the river. Yaz was sitting beside it, poking at it with a short stick. He sat down next to her and passed her some breakfast.</p><p>“You want to talk about it?”</p><p>“Not particularly.”</p><p>“Was there really a spider in your tent last night?”</p><p>Yaz thought about telling him the truth, about the Doctor’s night terror and subsequent panic attack but it didn’t feel right somehow, even if she was behaving like an asshole.</p><p>“It didn’t sound like you screaming” Ryan prompted her.</p><p>Yaz shrugged, picking bits off the food which tasted like raspberry yogurt this time. “I don’t know if I can do this any more.” Yaz admitted.</p><p>“Travelling with her?”</p><p>Yaz nodded.</p><p>“I thought you loved travelling with her, you two are like best mates.”</p><p>Yaz snorted. “I don’t think we’re even friends anymore. It’s like she can’t stand to be near me.”</p><p>“I don’t think that’s true Yaz. She’s just gone blind, she’s scared.”</p><p>“Whatever this is, its got very little to do with her being blind. And I don’t care what her reasoning is, she can’t treat me the way she is. If we’re friends and she has a problem she should be talking to me about it instead of lashing out. I’ve tried to be patient with her but I can’t take much more of it.”</p><p>“She’s closer to you than she is to me or Graham. Maybe she’s worried you’ll drag it out of her, whatever it is.”</p><p>They both turned around when they heard Graham’s voice behind them. “We’re all packed up, you two ready?”</p><p>With a sigh Yaz pushed herself to her feet and walked back the direction they had come in. They were still in the middle of the dense forest so it would be slow going until they got through. She picked up her pack and started walking on what looked like the clearest path that was going in the right direction.</p><p>Graham handed the Doctor her pack and she hoisted it onto her back. When Yaz appeared, she would apologise. She hadn’t meant to be so rude that morning . It just kept coming out like she had no control over it.</p><p>But then Graham put his arm around her shoulders again and began to steer her in the right direction.</p><p>“Where’s Yaz?”</p><p>“Uhhh she’s already started walking cockle, sorry. You’ll have to put up with me for now. She’ll cool off.”</p><p>The Doctor nodded, trying not to feel too hurt and instead concentrating on what Yaz and Ryan were talking about in front of them. She wanted to know how Yaz was doing, how upset she still was. Maybe if she kept thinking about Yaz she wouldn’t think about Gallifrey. At least with Yaz there was some spark of friendship left to save. At least she hoped there was. Not that it wouldn’t be entirely her own fault if there wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Doctor liked spending time with all her fam, of course she did, but she was realising that walking with Graham and walking with Yaz were two very different activities, especially when she couldn’t see where she was going.</p><p>Graham was a terrible guide, constantly allowing her to trip on small things growing from the forest floor. She had fallen twice even after she got him to walk in front of her while she held onto his pack. Graham kept rambling on which normally she liked because it distracted her from her thoughts about Gallifrey. But he wasn’t very good at telling her anything about their surroundings and kept forgetting to tell her important stuff like having to step over things, hence the falls.</p><p>Her ankle was throbbing painfully again as she walked and she tried not to limp too much. The good thing about walking with Graham was that he walked more slowly than Yaz and Ryan who kept stopping to allow them to catch up.</p><p>She felt ridiculous at the back of their group, hanging onto Grahams backpack like a baby human in one of those carrier things, aware that people were having to wait for her. She also had a headache brewing, pulsing at the base of her skull.</p><p>Without warning her already painful right ankle got caught under a sticking up tree root and she was pitching forwards, unable to stop herself and accidentally bringing Graham down with her. She lay on the floor for a moment, completely winded, feeling Graham getting up beside her and hearing Yaz and Ryan hurrying back towards them.</p><p>She wanted to scream. Why can nothing go right anymore? Why can she not manage a simple walk without ending up flat on her face? Why can she not talk to her friends without pissing them off?</p><p>The path is incredibly narrow and she can hear Ryan fussing over Graham in front of her and realises she has no idea where Yaz is until she feels Yaz’s hands on her, rolling her onto her back and helping her sit up.</p><p>“Where are you hurt?” Yaz asked from above her. She didn’t sound angry or upset anymore, but she didn’t sound anything else either really, her tone completely flat. The Doctor really wished she could see her face.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“Don’t lie to me Doctor, I can see it in your face.”</p><p>Not fair, she thinks to herself.</p><p>“Just gave my ankle another pull, it’ll be fine in a second.”</p><p>Yaz made a sound like a snort and the Doctor can hear her standing up again.</p><p>“Graham are you all right?”</p><p>She sounds much more worried about him the Doctor thought, annoyed when she realised she was jealous.</p><p>“Fine love, was just a bit of a surprise and a jolt to the old joints but I’m not hurt.”</p><p>“I’m going to walk on ahead a little and see if there’s anywhere we can take a break for the day and camp overnight. You need rest and the Doctor needs to stop walking on that ankle.”</p><p>“Can you not talk about me like I’m not here” demanded the Doctor from where she was still sitting on the ground. Truthfully, the thought of taking the weight off her ankle sounded incredible but also, she just wanted off this damn planet. She was sick of it.</p><p>“I don’t know where you are Doctor but it’s not here” Yaz retorted and she stomped off, taking Ryan with her judging by the sound of the retreating footsteps.</p><p>“I’m sorry Graham” she whispered, turning to him.</p><p>“What for?”</p><p>“For making you fall, for allowing us to get stranded here in the first place, for being completely useless to get us out of here.”</p><p>“None of those things are what you should be apologising for and I’m not the person you should be apologising too. I don’t know what’s happened between you and Yaz but you need to fix it. You’re her hero Doc and I know you know that. She admires you so much and whatever has gone wrong  between the two of you has really hurt her.”</p><p>The Doctor had the grace to look ashamed of herself.</p><p>“I know” she whispered.</p><p>She wanted to apologise, she really did but she had no idea where to start. Every time she opened her mouth she seemed to make it worse. Every time she thought of Yaz, of how incredibly important Yaz was to her, all the people she had lost and were seared on her hearts started burning. She couldn’t lose any of the fam, but especially not Yaz, the way she had lost them.</p><p>A few minutes later she was aware of the footsteps returning again, announcing that Ryan and Yaz had come back.</p><p>“There’s a deserted cabin a couple of hundred metres away. Will your ankle be okay to walk that far Doctor?” Ryan asked.</p><p>She nodded, pushing herself to her feet painfullu and hopping slightly, surprised when she feelt Yaz’s small hand brush tentatively against hers, offering to guide her.</p><p>Yaz started to walk forwards but the Doctor held her back.</p><p>“Yaz I…”</p><p>“Save it Doctor” Yaz interrupted. “I’ve clearly done something to make you hate me. I don’t know what it was but I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to end but maybe it’s better this way. But we’re stuck here together for now and you need my help whether either of us likes it or not so can we just be civil until we can get out of here and then you can drop me off in Sheffield and you never have to think about me again alright?”</p><p>Yaz wants to leave you. Of course, she does.</p><p>Oh Yasmin Khan, how can you ever think that I hate you?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“We’re here” Yaz told the Doctor. “Six steps up, steep, narrow and uneven, no handrail.”</p><p>The Doctor felt Yaz’s arm move upwards and then pause. She found the edge of the stair with the toe of her boot and trailed her foot up until she found the flat of the step and she could climb the stair. Yaz was right, they were uneven. And small. These were by far the smallest feet she had ever had, like a child’s or something, but they didn’t fit onto the step. Yaz climbed the stairs very slowly for which she was grateful as their patchiness made her feel incredibly off balance.</p><p>“We’re on a porch with a roof, about a metre and a half deep, door directly in front of us, going to open out towards you.” Yaz explained when they got to the top. She opened the door and the Doctor put out her hand to catch it so it wouldn’t hit her as she walked through.</p><p>It was quiet inside the cabin, only the two of them were there as Graham and Ryan had stopped to collect some more firewood. The wooden walls deadened the sounds of the forest, she hadn’t realised how loud it had been until the noise was gone.</p><p>It left more room for the screaming in her head.  </p><p>“It’s about eight metres long by five metres deep, we’re standing in the front left corner. There’s a large fireplace in the centre of the opposite wall and a bed of some sort on the wall to the right, it’s part of the room, and really just rough planks. There’s one window on the wall to our left but it’s not letting in much light so I’m going to light the lamp from your pack.”</p><p>The Doctor nodded without commenting and took the hint to shrug her bag off. She could hear Yaz rummaging in it and she stretched out her left arm until it made contact with the wall. Being able to touch something solid was reassuring, it reminded her that the planet was still there and she wasn’t just floating through the abyss. She walked slowly around the perimeter of the room to get her bearings, keeping her hand on the wall, the other stretched out in front of her in case there were more obstacles than Yaz had mentioned. Not that she didn’t trust Yaz, she was actually really good at this and walking through the forest with Graham earlier without her grounding presence had been incredibly difficult… but still.</p><p>She heard the click of the lamp and Yaz’s footsteps crossing the room just behind her, it sounded like she had put the lamp on the rough mantle piece above the fireplace that she had just passed.</p><p>“Doctor! Stop!” came Yaz’s voice, loud and urgent from behind her.</p><p>She froze.</p><p>Yaz grabbed her hand and tugged her towards the floor. She put the Doctor’s hand on the floor and guided it over the wooden floorboards, showing her where some of the wood had rotted away and there was a large hole that she had been about two paces away from stepping in.</p><p>The Doctor shuddered at the thought of what could have happened if she had gone through the floor, it wasn’t the fall so much but the wood was heavily splintered and she could have very easily ended up impaled on something. Then how would she get the fam out of here?</p><p>“I’m sorry, I couldn’t see it until I got the light on.” Yaz explained.</p><p>“Well if you can't see something, I don’t know how the hell I'm supposed to see it!” she folded her arms across her chest and glared at Yaz who seemed to still be on the floor.</p><p>She heard Yaz take in a deep breath and then stand up.</p><p>“I’m going to put both packs on the end of the bed closest to the fireplace so you don’t trip on them.” Yaz’s voice was quiet… afraid?</p><p>She stood still and listened intently, one hand on the wall, as she tried to work out what Yaz was doing. She had heard the packs being stacked on the bed and Yaz had walked across the room again but she had stopped moving now, only the soft sounds of her breath came through the otherwise silent space.</p><p>The silence was interrupted by Ryan and Graham arriving back.</p><p>“Good thing we found this place, it’s starting to rain again.” Graham announced and she heard him drop his pack to the floor with a loud thud. She wasn’t sure where he was exactly, the room had a bit of an echo that made it difficult to pinpoint sounds with any accuracy and she would have to remember that for later, she didn’t want any more falls today thank-you very much.</p><p>But the news about the changing weather wasn’t good. The rain storm that had caught them when they arrived had lasted for a few hours but rain storms on Troome could last up to a week and it wasn’t rain like the fam were used to. Imagine rain falling so hard that it could leave bruises on your skin or even slice through it, they couldn’t go out in it. There was nothing wrong with the water itself, just with how heavily it fell. But if the rivers got too swollen it might make it even harder to track the TARDIS.</p><p>At least this cabin was marginally bigger than the tents.</p><p>But now they were effectively trapped together for an indefinite period of time. Perfect. Just wonderful.</p><p>Someone… Ryan? was fiddling with the sticks in the fireplace and she heard a distinctive crackle as he coaxed the flame to life and he gave a low cheer of celebration – definitely Ryan.</p><p>Ryan was in front of the fireplace and she was pretty sure that was Graham sitting a few feet in front of her so where was Yaz. She lifted her head, trying to locate Yaz’s breathing or a slight movement from her but there was nothing.</p><p>She couldn’t wander off, she could get hurt in the rain, she could get lost, she could fall, she could be attacked by one of the creatures that lived in the forest…</p><p>“Where’s Yaz?”</p><p>“She said she needed air, went out just as we came in.” Ryan answered from where he was still in front of the fire.</p><p>
  <em>NO!!!</em>
</p><p>She spun round and set course for where she hoped the door was, her elbow eventually (how was it eventually in such a small room?) hit the wall. She trailed her fingers across it until she came to a crack that indicated the door and she fumbled for a moment to find the handle.</p><p>As soon as she opened the door, the noise of the rain assaulted her ears, it sounded like she was standing under a waterfall. Yaz couldn’t be out in this, she’d be killed. The rain was heavy enough to wash away the TARDIS just a few days ago and this was worse, much worse. Yaz was small, smaller than her even and so fragile and precious.</p><p>She felt the door bump lightly into her back as it shut behind her.</p><p>“YAZ!” she screamed into the abyss.</p><p>“Right here.”</p><p>She jumped. Yaz’s voice was close, on her left, under the roof of the porch. She let out a soft sigh of relief.  But her relief was instantly replaced by irritation. Yaz needed to tell her if she was leaving. She had told her that she had tried to run away just three years ago with the intent of killing herself. <em>Stars</em>, if something happened to Yaz… she briefly imagined how awful it would be to turn up on the Khans door and tell them that Yaz was dead.</p><p>“You can’t just leave like that!” her voice was angrier than she meant it to be. Oops.</p><p>“Did you seriously just come out here to berate me some more? Because I really don’t need to hear it Doctor.”</p><p>Yaz sounded tired, her voice was low down, she must be sitting on the floor.</p><p>“I thought you had run off!”</p><p>“I can’t believe <em>you</em> would use that against me! I told you about that because I thought you would understand.”</p><p>Yaz has stood up now she’s pretty sure. The noise outside makes it hard to be certain.</p><p>“I… what? Yaz no!”</p><p>She gritted her teeth. Why would her words not come out the way they were supposed to?</p><p>“Why would you care anyway? You’ve made it pretty clear recently that you want nothing to do with me anymore.”</p><p>“You do not get to question how much I care about you Yaz. All of you.”</p><p>“Yeah yeah it’s your duty. You’ve told me. Well let me break it to you Doctor. I am not anyone’s ‘duty’. I might not be a Time Lord from some advanced civilisation but I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”</p><p>“Humans are fragile. They break so easily. What we do is dangerous!”</p><p>“You think I don’t know that? I’m a police officer remember? I could be killed any day at work. And if we’re so <em>fragile</em> why don’t you go and find one of your own people to travel with!”</p><p>She clutched the wall for support. The screams of the billions of slaughtered Gallifreyan children echoing through her ears for a moment, invading her mind without consent.</p><p>“Yaz, please come inside.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because”… <em>because I can't see and if you’re not all in the same room I can't keep track of you. Because I’m worried about you. Because I’m scared. Because I’m sure there’s something tracking us and it might still be coming. Because you make me feel safe. Because I can't be responsible for something bad happening to Yasmin Khan. </em></p><p>“Please Yaz.”</p><p>“Fine. Door’s about 3 metres away on your right. After you.”</p><p>She didn’t sound happy about it, but she was coming. The Doctor would take that for now.</p><p>The Doctor trailed the back of her hand against the wall again and found the door handle much more easily this time. She stepped into the room, not immediately able to locate Ryan and Graham as the noise of the rainfall was still coming through the door, so she stepped inside tentatively, trusting that they wouldn’t let her walk into them.</p><p>She shouldn’t have trusted them.</p><p>Only four steps into the room and Graham’s shout of “DOC!” was too late because she had just stepped on something and gone flying. AGAIN! Her arms flailed for something to grab onto or to break her fall but there was nothing and she landed hard.</p><p>There was silence in the room.</p><p>The Doctor groaned from where she lay, now sprawled across the floor, something hard digging painfully into her ribs. She fished it out from underneath her.</p><p>“Why” she said quietly, so very quietly, “would you leave this” her voice was getting louder now “for me to fall over!”</p><p>She screamed the last few words.</p><p>Ryan hardly dared to breathe when he realised it was his bottle. He had been in the process of emptying out his pack looking for the deck of cards he knew were in there. He had noticed it roll away but hadn’t bothered to pick it up. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might trip on it.</p><p>He had never seen her look so angry, her normally pale cheeks were red and she was visibly shaking as she pushed herself into a sitting position. Not even when she had been getting rid of the Dalek had she looked like this.</p><p>She threw the bottle hard across the room with a grunt.</p><p>There was a stunned silence.</p><p>Nobody dared to move.</p><p>When she spoke her voice was quiet again. But Ryan could tell she wasn’t just angry. She was seething with barely contained rage.</p><p>“Is there <em>anything</em> else on this floor that I am going to fall over?”</p><p>Ryan gulped. “Yeah” he whispered. “Yeah a few things. I’ll pick them up, hold on.”</p><p>The Doctor was aware of him scurrying around the floor in front of her, seemingly picking up numerous items.</p><p>The noises stopped again a few minutes later… was he done?</p><p>“Put both your packs up beside ours, then they can’t be fallen over either.” Came Yaz’s voice from behind her.</p><p>“I don’t need you to speak for me Yaz!”</p><p>“Then speak for yourself! I’m used to being with a blind person, they aren’t. He shouldn’t have left stuff all over the floor but you weren’t here. If you don’t tell them what you need you can’t expect them to figure it out magically. And on that note Nolee was a blind human who was used to it and could navigate the world pretty well on her own with her cane and the little sight she had. You’re a Time Lord who’s new to this and has no usable sight to fall back on, if you want something different from me you have to ask for it because I sure as hell can't tell what you're thinking Doctor.”</p><p>“I don’t <em>need</em> anything.”</p><p>“Course you don’t. That’s why you're currently lying on the floor.”</p><p>“<em>Ooookay” </em>breathed Graham, cutting the Doctor off before she could retaliate. “Lets all have something to eat before anyone says anything they might regret later.”</p><p>“Not everything can be solved with food Graham.”</p><p>“No Doc it can't but I think we all need to calm down a bit. We’re all stuck here and fighting amongst ourselves isn’t going to get us anywhere.”</p><p>The Doctor stood up, no desire to be the only one sitting on the floor like a child.</p><p>“I’m sorry Doctor” Ryan said quietly, staring at the floor.</p><p>She grunted in acknowledgement, not ready to forgive him yet.</p><p>The other three were moving and Yaz? handed her some food from Ryan’s pack without a word. She didn’t bother unwrapping it. Who knew how long they might be here and she wasn’t sure how much food was left. She could go without, skipping a few meals wouldn’t harm her.</p><p>She was pretty sure the other three were sitting together in front of the fire while she stood behind them, back against the wall beside the door. As she stood her ankle, which she had been able to ignore up to that point began to make its presence known again and throb painfully. She shifted her weight so she was standing on her left foot and lifted her injured right foot up, feeling a bit like a lame dog as she did so.</p><p>There was silence in the hut, it was getting colder again though it wasn’t night yet, must be the rain, and she shivered involuntarily.</p><p>“Doc you’re freezing, come and sit with us” invited Graham.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“Course you are, you’re shivering because it’s fun. Come and sit with us anyway.”</p><p>She could feel three pairs of expectant eyes on her. Why couldn’t they stop fusing over her for two minutes and leave her alone?</p><p>She took a step forwards and almost instantly her ankle gave out from underneath her. But she didn’t fall, not this time. Yaz’s hands, too small to be Ryan’s or Graham’s, had caught her strongly around the waist and were controlling her descent to the floor.</p><p>The Doctor gritted her teeth, both in pain and embarrassed at the display of weakness in front of the fam. Yaz had disappeared the moment she was safely on the ground and she could hear her moving around, rummaging through the packs before sitting down in front of her.</p><p>“Can I see your ankle?” Yaz demanded.</p><p>The Doctor vaguely wondered if that was the same tone of voice she used while arresting people.</p><p>“My ankle’s fine.”</p><p>Yaz wanted to scream in frustration.</p><p>“No! It isn’t! It was black and blue yesterday, you’ve wrenched it and fallen several times since the first injury and its just buckled underneath you. You keep going on about your bloody Duty of Care, well I have news for you Doctor, that starts with you because you can’t do much when you can’t see and you can’t walk. Can't do anything about your sight but I can treat your damn ankle.”</p><p>The Doctor had never heard Yaz sound quite so furious and she blinked in surprise, sullenly sitting back and putting her leg out in front of her.</p><p>With difficulty, Yaz pulled her boot off, followed by her sock and gasped.</p><p>“For crying out loud Doctor, you’re in a right state. Your entire foot is black and purple from your instep to an inch or two above your ankle.” She drew a line with her finger so the Doctor would know where she was talking about.</p><p>“Here” she grabbed the Doctor’s hand “Fell how swollen that is! What were you thinking of walking on it?” she asked incredulously.</p><p>Yaz didn’t wait for an answer and started exploring the First Aid Kit properly.</p><p>“You know it’s really an oversight for you to label everything in Gallifreyan.” She grumbled.</p><p>“Well excuse me for not predicting that I’d randomly go blind.” She said acidly.</p><p>“That you’re excused for. What you’re not excused for is just assuming that you wouldn’t be the one needing help. You constantly push us out of the way which means you’re far more likely to be hurt than we are.”</p><p>“I heal better than you lot.”</p><p>“Yeah, you’re really demonstrating that now.”</p><p>“Yaz if I wanted to be lectured, I would go and find River.” She balked when she realised what she had said.</p><p>“Who’s River?” asked Ryan immediately.</p><p>“It’s not important.”</p><p>Yaz pushed something into her hand. “Is this some sort of medical scanner? Will it tell me if your ankles broken?”</p><p>The Doctor ran her fingers over it.</p><p>“Yes, it is but you don’t need it, my ankle isn’t broken.”</p><p>“Well excuse me if I don’t take your word for it <em>Doctor</em>.” She said, emphasising the last word and taking the scanner back and fiddling with it, trying to figure out how it worked.</p><p>“You said everyone’s important. Who’s River.” Ryan persistent.</p><p>“She’s my wife, alright.”</p><p>There was silence, Yaz even stopped trying to work out how to make the scanner work.</p><p>“You’re married Doc?”</p><p>“Technically I’m a widow.” She mumbled. She really didn’t want to get into this.</p><p>“Oh Doc, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be, it was a long time ago, she died the day I met her. She was a Time Traveller too, her timeline was different to mine, we always met out of order. I didn’t even know who she was. Every time I met her after that she knew me less while I knew her more.”</p><p>She felt arms wrap around her and Grahams voice in her ear. She stiffened involuntarily, what was it with this body and being touched?</p><p>“That sounds really tough. I can’t imagine… If I had known Grace…” he trailed off, not able to say any more and she heard Ryan come and put an arm around him, leading him outside for a moment of privacy.</p><p>A buzzing sound started in front of her, apparently Yaz had figured out how to work the scanner.</p><p>“Doctor” she said aghast “This says you have a Grade 3 Sprain!”</p><p>“It’s fine Yaz, it’s not a big deal.”</p><p>“Yes, it is! I had a Grade 2 sprain when Izzie Flint pushed me down a flight of stairs and I was on crutches for a month! Your ligaments have completely torn! Now is there anything in this kit that will help and don’t even think of lying to me about it.”</p><p>The Doctor huffed exasperatedly. “There’s a silver pot with a blue lid but I heal fast, one of you lot might need it.”</p><p>“Are you telling me that if it was me sitting here with torn ligaments that you wouldn’t let me use this stuff because Ryan <em>might</em> need it.”</p><p>“No but…”</p><p>“No buts, it is exactly the same thing and the three of us are at a distinct advantage because unlike your stubborn ass we actually admit when we’re hurt and wouldn’t have let it get this bad.”</p><p>“Did you really just call me an ass?”</p><p>“Yes. And I meant it. I can think of a few other things if you want to hear them but first tell me which of these pots I want because they’re both filled with clear gunk that doesn’t smell of anything but the writing is different.</p><p>The Doctor had been trying to make a joke but Yaz had either missed it or ignored it.</p><p>She closed her eyes, one pot was a healing salve but the other was an aspirin based topical pain reliever which she couldn’t have, she only carried it for the humans. And there was no way to tell which was which when she couldn’t read the label.</p><p>“Doctor?” Yaz prompted.</p><p>“We’re going to have to do without Yaz, one of those is what we need but the other contains aspirin which I’m highly allergic to. Did I ever mention that? But yeah, anyway, no aspirin for me.”</p><p>“Give me your hand?”</p><p>“Why, you going to try and poison me?”</p><p>“Don’t tempt me.” She took the Doctor’s hand and separated her index finger which she used to trace the peculiar shapes on the label on top of the tin.</p><p>“Is that the one we want?”</p><p>“I don’t think so, hard to tell just from that… show me the other one.” Yaz repeated the process with the second tin. “That one, definitely that one.”</p><p>“Sure?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“And if you start having an allergic reaction what am I looking for and what do I do?” Yaz asked, unscrewing the pot.</p><p>“I’ll vomit, have a fit and then I’ll die unless I can burn it off first. There won't be anything you can do.”</p><p>“Right, glad I asked…”</p><p>Yaz felt like holding her breath as she lifted the Doctor’s foot and gently massaged the salve all over her foot and ankle and then picked up the cushioned rigid brace she had found in the kit and snapped it around the Doctor’s ankle.</p><p>“Hey, I don’t want that on, just strap it up again. I can’t walk with it.”</p><p>“That’s the whole point Doctor. You’re not supposed to be walking on it. Besides there’s nowhere to go, by the time this rain stops it will be dark and we can’t walk then anyway. Now you’re going to put the ice-pack on, elevate it and sit still.”</p><p>“I take it back, you’re worse than River.”</p><p>“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”</p><p>She ignored the Doctor’s muttered comment that she shouldn’t and tidied the used first aid supplies, drawing a cross on the label of the aspirin and a star on the salve she had put on the Doctor’s ankle. Thankfully she seemed as healthy as she had before. She didn’t seem to be having a deadly allergic reaction anyway.</p><p>She was just putting the icepack back on the Doctor’s ankle and elevating it on one of the packs when the boys came back in.</p><p>Yaz shot them a sympathetic smile which Ryan acknowledged.</p><p>“Grandad and I are going to play cards, either of you want to play?”</p><p>“I’ll play” Yaz said quickly, figuring that a game would keep things relaxed, the tension that had been in the room had started to ease slightly while Yaz had treated the Doctor’s ankle for her and she was keen to keep it like that.</p><p>The Doctor remained silent. She had been making a very conscious effort to relax while Yaz had been looking after her ridiculous injury. She might have been able to hold a chess game in her head when she could play by feeling the pieces and although she could easily hold a card game in her head she couldn’t play by feel.</p><p>“You guys go ahead.”</p><p>She could hear Ryan moving around, presumably looking for the cards.</p><p>“Can you read braille Doctor?” Yaz asked.</p><p>The Doctor scrunched, expecting Yaz to know better.</p><p>“The knowledge isn’t miraculously transplanted into your head when you go blind Yaz.” she said crossly.</p><p>“I know that, but you seem to be able to read everything else we come across, even stuff the TARDIS hasn’t translated.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t matter anyway, I don’t have braille playing cards.”</p><p>“I can teach you and mark the cards if you like, not the whole thing obviously but you don’t need to know much to play cards.”</p><p>“Why on earth can you read braille Yaz?”</p><p>“Nolee and I used to pass notes in class. I can’t read it with my fingers, but I can sight read it reasonably well. It’s been a few years, but I can still do enough to mark a pack of cards if you want me to.”</p><p>“Yeah go on then.” The Doctor consented, figuring it would give her something to do.</p><p>Yaz took the pack of cards and pointed the boys in the direction of the chess set and also took a needle out of the sewing kit in Graham’s pack (why he had a sewing kit she had no idea) and sat down beside the Doctor.</p><p>“What do you know about braille?”</p><p>“Nothing really, I’ve seen it but never taken the time to pay any attention to it.”</p><p>“Okay well I’m going to show you Grade 1 braille and only what we need for a deck of cards which is the numbers to 9, and the letters a, c, d, s, j, q, k and x. Grade 2 braille is all about contractions and shortened forms of words and if this looks like a permanent situation I can teach you that too. So each character in Braille is made out of a series of six raised dots and the numerals are the same as letters a to j. If you were reading something there would be another character to indicate you were reading a number instead of a letter but we don’t need to worry about that now. You with me so far?”</p><p>“I can’t believe you know all this Yaz, I’m impressed.”</p><p>“I know I probably seem pretty stupid to you and I never even made it to uni but I’m not totally useless, even if I only learned braille to write secret love letters.”</p><p>“I don’t think you're stupid Yaz, you're brilliant, I would never have asked you to travel with me if you weren’t.”</p><p>“You didn’t ask, we accosted you. You’ve essentially got three run aways on the TARDIS.”</p><p>“Technically four. I stole the TARDIS and ran away when I left Gallifrey.”</p><p>“You probably shouldn’t admit theft to a police officer.”</p><p>“We’re a bit out of your jurisdiction Yaz, and the statute of limitations is up, it was well over two thousand years ago.”</p><p>“Uhh right. Course it was.”</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“I’ve opened up the cardboard packet the cards came in, I’m making you a cheat sheet. I’m nearly done.”</p><p>“What do you mean a cheat sheet?”</p><p>“Hand.”</p><p>The Doctor held out her hand again and Yaz put the packet on her lap and guided her hand to the top row of braille characters that she had made.</p><p>“This row are the numbers.” She explained. “this is the letter a, it’s also the number 1 and we will use it as the ace. The 6 dots that make up a braille cell are numbered going down so 1 is beside 4. Does that make sense? A uses just the one dot in position one. You with me?”</p><p>The Doctor nodded, she was sort of with her and she allowed Yaz to move her fingers over the bumps.</p><p>“This row are your special cards in alphabetical order so this is j, k, q and x for the jack, king, queen and joker. This bottom row has the letters for the suits so a, c, d and s.” As she spoke she steered the Doctors hands across the page, pointing out the features of each character.</p><p>“It’ll take me ten minutes to mark the cards, why don’t you familiarise yourself with them. If you lose where you’re at then ask because if you learn one of them wrong, it'll be hard to unlearn it.”</p><p>Yaz left her to it, her gut twisted slightly as she watched the Doctor frown over the unfamiliar way to read. She was incredibly clever and Yaz didn’t think she’d ever really seen her struggle over anything.</p><p>She shook the thought off. The Doctor wouldn’t appreciate the sympathy and if she waited too long the Doctor was liable to get grumpy again, Yaz was noticing that it tended to happen when she had time to be alone with her thoughts, like first thing in the morning when she had been sitting alone all night given that she didn’t sleep much. She wished again that the Doctor could open up about what ever was upsetting her so much.</p><p>Yaz set to work marking each playing card individually with the suit and the value. It didn’t take her as long as she thought.  </p><p>“I’ve marked the cards Doctor” announced Yaz. This time she didn’t have to ask as the Doctor stuck her hand out for Yaz to take and introduce her to the cards.</p><p>Yaz took hold of it and showed her the top card – the six of diamonds. “So on the left side of each card I’ve marked the suit” Yaz explained. “Do you know which suit this is?”</p><p>“Diamonds?” she asked hesitantly.</p><p>“Exactly. The right side of each card has the numerical value. Which number is this?”</p><p>“Eight?” the Doctor asked, more confident this time.</p><p>“Close it’s six.”</p><p>The Doctor withdrew her hand instantly, drawing into herself.</p><p>“Let me show you” Yaz requested, more patiently than she felt. “They’re really close, only one small difference. The number six uses dots one, two and four whereas the eight uses dots one, two and five. Why don’t we have a practice with some of these first and then we can play Ryan and Graham in a game?”</p><p>Yaz handed her the next card on the pile which was the three of clubs.</p><p>She furrowed her brow in confusion. “This has the same character on each side?”</p><p>“You’re right it does, can you remember why?”</p><p>“Oh, you said the numbers share the characters for the first letters of the alphabet.”</p><p>“Yup” praised Yaz lightly, the Doctor probably wouldn’t respond to a well done in this scenario but actually she was doing well, it had taken Yaz weeks to get the alphabet down pat and she had only been trying to learn visually. Admittedly she had also been trying to do it while there was a noisy French class going on around her which she had been ignoring.</p><p>“So it’s the three of clubs?”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>Yaz handed her the next card and the next. By the time they were halfway through the pack the Doctor was becoming more confident with what her fingers were telling her and was getting them mostly correct even if she was doing it slowly.</p><p>“Do you know how to play Old Maid Doctor? It’s a good one to practice with as there’s no need for speed, we can always switch it up later.”</p><p>“Yeah I do. Boys?”</p><p>“Haven’t played since I was a kid but yeah I know it.” Agreed Ryan.</p><p>“I spent months in bed when I was going through chemo, I think I know every card game in the book” said Graham with a shrug. He and Ryan abandoned their chess game and came to join the girls, the Doctor was leaning against the wall so she could have her ankle elevated at Yaz’s insistence.</p><p>Graham shuffled the cards expertly, quickly removing the Queen of Clubs to be the Old Maid and started to deal.</p><p>“Hey, wait a minute, Yaz and the Doctor can tell what the cards are now without even looking at them!” Ryan complained.</p><p>That was true and it genuinely hadn’t occurred to Yaz. She paused, not sure how to get around that. She couldn’t play blindfolded because she couldn’t read braille by touch and the Doctor would inevitably touch more than one card while she selected the one she wanted.</p><p>“How about we all just hold the ends of the cards with the braille markings then Yaz can't see them and I won't touch them?” she suggested thoughtfully.</p><p>“Fine… but no cheating Yaz!” Ryan teased.</p><p>“Hey!” Yaz complained indignantly. “Who took all those extra hundreds when we played Monopoly?”</p><p>“Children please” said Graham and was rewarded for his efforts with an elbow from Ryan.</p><p>“Cards at your four o’clock” Yaz told the Doctor as Graham finished dealing. She reached out her hand and found her pile easily.</p><p>They were quiet, but this time comfortably so, as they matched the cards they had and respectfully finished waiting for the Doctor to do hers which took longer as she slowly read the braille symbols on each card twice and, to her credit, didn’t make any mistakes.</p><p>Sitting amongst her friends the Doctor felt more tethered to reality than she had since she had gone blind three days ago. If she closed her eyes she could pretend that that was the only thing stopping her from being able to see and she was having to concentrate so hard on reading the funny little braille characters and keep in her head which cards were left in play and who had how many that she could almost ignore the image of Gallifrey burning behind her retinas and block the screams of the dying children from her ears.</p><p>Yaz felt more relaxed than she had in days. For now at least, the Doctor’s bad temper seemed to have abated and in a way it was just like a relaxing evening on the TARDIS… or it was until there was a loud noise from outside and the whole cabin shook…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: Callous mentions of death. No one actually dies.</p><p>Updated the rating to T for swearing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“Your turn Doctor” Yaz prompted her. The other three had all gone, starting with Graham. She knew Yaz was still sitting on her right and if she was last then Graham must be opposite her so by default, Ryan must be diagonally to her right, in front of Yaz.</p><p>She hesitantly put out her hand, realizingly she had no idea where Graham had his cards and she was only assuming that he was holding them out ready. She felt Yaz’s hand reach out and lightly guide hers to where Graham was holding his cards out in a fan. She ran her fingers across them and selected one, bringing it back to her own pile to read and trying to decipher if it was the five or nine of spades.</p><p>“If you tap the end of your cards she can hear where they are” Yaz suggested from her right.</p><p>
  <em>Why hadn’t she thought of that?</em>
</p><p>Unlike the Doctor, Yaz had been able to see Graham squirm uncomfortably when she had had to guide her hand to where he was holding out the playing cards, directly in front of her face.</p><p>Suddenly, without warning, there was a horrific crash from outside and the whole cabin shook violently.</p><p>The Doctor jumped, dropping her cards, feeling panic rise in her chest as the smell of smoke overwhelmed her senses.</p><p>
  <em>Gallifrey… burning, disintegrating around her, someone is screaming at her… Yaz? Why is Yaz on Gallifrey? No humans allowed on Gallifrey… something was touching her… GET OFF ME!!!</em>
</p><p>The room was momentarily lit by a flash of light so bright it made Yaz’s eyes hurt and gave her a seconds advantage over the Doctor that something was about to happen. The entire cabin seemed to shudder and there was a second crash directly above them. If Yaz had to guess, she would have said that a tree had come down and was on the roof.</p><p>Yaz watched, transfixed for a moment as a flaming log fell out of the fireplace and rolled towards them, leaving the floor smouldering in its wake until it ran into the wall about a foot to the left of the Doctor. She didn’t seem to have registered its presence, the danger she was in, or indeed anything going on around her at all. She was sitting completely rigidly, her hands in tense fists that were opening and closing reflexively and breathing rapidly. She was panicking again. But Yaz didn’t have time to wonder about it now.</p><p>“Doctor! Move!” she shouted, tugging at her arm and dodging when the Doctor tried to push her away.</p><p>Through her peripheral vision she could see Graham emptying their water bottles which had been on the mantle piece over the burning logs and Ryan refilling them from the torrential rain that was still pouring down outside. It wasn’t enough though and the flames continued to rise.</p><p>“Doctor! You're not safe, you need to move!” Yaz shouted desperately, but she was retreating further and further into herself, unable or unwilling to respond to Yaz as she pulled her, the flames coming closer to her coat.</p><p>“Yaz! Get her out of here!” Ryan shouted, watching the scene unfold.</p><p>“I’m sorry Doctor” Yaz apologised in advance as she got in close and grabbed the Doctor in a bear hug like movement, trapping her arms at her sides and using the momentum  to drag her away from the flames while the Doctor screamed in her ear and struggled to break free.</p><p>Yaz managed to wrestle her to the floor on the other side of the cabin near the door, safely away from the flames for now which the boys were getting under control. She should be helping them. Not restraining the Doctor who she now had lying on the floor, hands behind her back, struggling and panicking. She tried to talk to her, but she was unwilling to let go while there was still a danger from the fire in case she tried to run. Crashing into a wall that she couldn’t see was one thing, walking into a fire was quite another.</p><p>But that didn’t make Yaz feel any better as the Doctor shouted and struggled viciously beneath her.</p><p>“Doctor please” she pleaded “It’s Yaz. Stop fighting me, I can’t let you up if you're still fighting me.”</p><p>She was incredibly relieved when Graham slumped back against the wall, satisfied that the fire was now out while Ryan wandered over to where the roof was now dipped in slightly under the weight of whatever had just fallen on it.</p><p>Yaz eased herself away from the Doctor who instantly scrambled backwards until she hit the wall.</p><p>“Doc what the <em>hell</em> was that?” panted Graham, wiping the sweat from his soot blackened face.</p><p>She didn’t respond, she was still breathing heavily as if she had just run a marathon.</p><p>“I think it was a panic attack… maybe? She had one the other morning, the screaming you heard, she was having a nightmare. Nearly broke my nose and gave me a black eye when I tried to wake her.” Yaz answered. There was no point in trying to hide it now, they had all seen it. And this couldn’t go on, she needed to deal with whatever issues were going on before someone got hurt.</p><p>“So now what do we do with her?” Ryan asked, eyebrows raised.</p><p>“<em>Ryan</em> she’s right there and she can hear you.” Yaz pointed out, moving so she was sitting in front of the Doctor.</p><p> “Doctor, you’re safe. You’re in the cabin with me and Graham and Ryan. No one is hurt, you’re fine.”</p><p>Yaz turned to Graham. “Can you open the door, lets try and clear the air in here, I think the smoke is what tipped her over the edge in the first place.”</p><p>Graham did as he was asked and watched as Yaz very slowly moved in towards the Doctor. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but she eventually took hold of the Doctor’s hand and placed it on her chest as they breathed together.</p><p>It was unnerving, watching her like this.</p><p>Even though she’d been blind for a couple of days, the anger, bad temper and helpful assistance from Yaz had been masking how vulnerable she was but this, watching her struggle to breathe, was something else. It felt like he was intruding on something intensely personal.</p><p>A few minutes later, satisfied that the panic attack had subsided, Yaz left her where she was to recover and got up to check out the fire damage for herself. The wood was badly scorched but didn’t seem to be seriously damaged, when she tentatively stepped on it there was no evidence that it was significantly weakened as it bore her weight without creaking or bending.</p><p>“You alright Doctor?” asked Ryan, annoyed that his voice shook slightly as he spoke. That had to be up there with one of the most terrifying experiences of his life.</p><p>“I’m fine” she muttered unconvincingly.</p><p>She patted the walls and floor beside her, trying to figure out where the hell she was in the room, she had lost all sense of orientation.</p><p>“Door is about a metre away on your right, window above your left shoulder.” came Yaz’s voice from just in front of her. She jumped, she hadn’t realised anyone was so close.</p><p>Trying to use the wall for support as unobtrusively as possible, she pushed herself to stand on shaky legs <em>Come on legs</em> and trailed the wall until she came to the door in the corner. Instantly she was assaulted by the noise of the rain and she walked over to the corner of the porch, sliding back down to sit in the corner between the wall and porch railing, tucking her knees under her chest and resting her head in her hands. She was trembling and pulled out another ginger humbug, desperate for it’s soothing properties.</p><p>
  <em>Are you out of your goddamn mind? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Get it together Doctor. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Two panic attacks in one day? Seriously? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You need to pull yourself together if you're going to get them out of here alive.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I don’t know how to fix this.</em>
</p><p>She popped another couple of ginger sweets in her mouth.</p><p>Thunder continued to crash over her head, rolling around above her like, a particularly busy bowling alley in the sky.  She jumped every time.</p><p>If she had been able to see, she might have appreciated the spectacular lightening storm that was going on around her.</p><p>If she had been able to see, she definitely would have noticed the bulbous pair of eyes watching her.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Yaz has she said anything to you that might explain what’s going on with her?” asked Ryan as soon as the door slammed shut behind the Doctor.</p><p>“Nothing.” She replied shaking her head. “But have you seen her recently?”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Looked at her, properly looked. She’s lost a <em>lot</em> of weight, her cheeks are hollow, and she’s gone all bony, when she’s sitting without her coat on you can see her spine. Before this when she was refusing to eat with us, I don’t think she was eating at all, certainly not as much as she should.”</p><p>“She’s an alien Yaz, maybe she just doesn’t need to eat as much as we do.” Pointed out Graham reasonably.</p><p>“Yeah I know but she always came and sat with us. Plus, she keeps pocketing the food tablets here instead of eating. Haven’t you noticed?”</p><p>“Can’t say that I have love.”</p><p>“She looks tired though, does she sleep?”</p><p>“She had a nightmare last night. She didn’t say it but I got the impression that she avoids sleeping to dodge the nightmares.”</p><p>“Sometimes when I walk into the console room in the morning she’s passed out draped over the console. Always pretends she’s not though.”</p><p>“I wonder what she has nightmares about?” wondered Ryan reasonably.</p><p>“Probably what ever is causing the panic attacks.”</p><p>“Do you think that’s what she’s so angry about?”</p><p>“She’s not just angry though. While I can’t imagine she would admit it, she’s probably terribly frightened.”</p><p>“The Doctor’s never afraid Grandad” scoffed Ryan.</p><p>Yaz thought about how the Doctor had cried the night she had gone blind. Huge, silent tears that had wracked her whole body but with her fist in her mouth so no one would hear her. What had happened in her life that had taught her to cry like that?</p><p>“I think” Yaz said slowly “she’s lonely.”</p><p>“She’s got us though.” Said Ryan.</p><p>“Yeah but think about it Ryan, we’ve been travelling with her for two years and we’ve never met any of her friends or family. She’s met my whole family, she’s met your mates. One of the first things she told us about herself was that she had lost her family and now we know she’s a widow. And she’s older than she looks, did she have kids? Grandkids?”</p><p>That was a sobering thought, just how much had the Doctor lost?</p><p>“When she brought us back to Sheffield that time and we were going to say goodbye, before you invited her to tea and there was the whole spider fiasco, she looked dead upset.”</p><p>“She never says goodbye, have you noticed? People say it to her, but she just nods at them.”</p><p>“I still can't imagine the Doctor being married” Ryan said shaking his head.</p><p>“I can’t imagine the Doc standing still long enough to <em>get</em> married.”</p><p>“Do you remember that night when she finally told us where she was from, and you asked if we could visit?”</p><p>“She were proper weird that night.”</p><p>“She looked like you had reached inside her and ripped her heart out. I think it’s something bigger.” Graham continued, ignoring Ryan’s interjection.</p><p>“I don’t think she’ll ever tell us, she doesn’t trust us.”</p><p>“I don’t think that’s it. Or at least not all of it.” Yaz argued. “She keeps talking about her duty of care to us. She’s worried about us, or specifically that something is going to happen to us.”</p><p>“Do you think she knows?”</p><p>“Knows what?”</p><p>“Well she’s a time traveller. Maybe she already knows how we all die.”</p><p>“She’s a terrible liar though Ryan, do you honestly think she could look us in the face and lie to us about something that big every day.” Asked Yaz with raised eyebrows.</p><p>“I do.” Said Graham. “I’m not saying that I think she knows, but if it came to protecting timelines or whatever the hell it is she goes on about then yes, I think she would lie to your face every day.”</p><p>“All this time and we still don’t know anything about her.”</p><p>“Yeah, we’ve essentially moved into her home and go on all these crazy, dangerous adventures with her and trust her to keep us safe and what do we know about her? Nothing. Gallifrey, Kasterborous, that doesn’t mean anything without context. We know her wife and family are dead but what the hell happened, should we be afraid of her?”</p><p>“You’re not implying she killed her own family are you? She would never.”</p><p>“Why do you always defend her Yaz? This morning you were in crying because of what she said to you. Let’s face it, she can be ruthless, and we all know it.”</p><p>The door opened behind them. “Have you three finished talking about me yet?” the Doctor asked, savouring the ginger sweet in her mouth. How many had she had this evening? Probably too many.  </p><p>“Doctor!” stuttered Ryan, an almost comical look of horror on his face.</p><p>Her tone was relaxed, almost friendly and her face calm but the hard line of her mouth gave her away.</p><p>“You look freezing Doctor, come and warm up.” Yaz invited her carefully. Was it her imagination or was the Doctor wavering where she stood?</p><p>She walked into the room a few steps, Yaz watched as she tried unsuccessfully to hide her limp. She didn’t come any further, instead choosing to lean back against the wall with her arms folded across her chest. Yaz suspected she didn’t want to risk showing any weakness by trailing the walls with her hand or worse, walking into something. And she was in a much better position to flee from where she stood. How much had she heard?</p><p>None of them moved.</p><p>They barely breathed.</p><p>“Has… has the rain stopped yet Doc?” Graham asked weakly, unable to stand it any longer.</p><p>She raised her eyebrows. “Have you looked out the window I was told was here to find out?”</p><p>Her voice was like acid.</p><p>It hadn’t. In fact if anything it looked like it was raining harder than ever.</p><p>
  <em>She can't believe that’s what they think of her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That she would murder her own family.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The worst part though, the worst part is that it’s true. </em>
</p><p>“I’m going to go to bed.” Yaz announced quietly, desperate to escape the situation. Not that there was anywhere to go but at least she can pretend she's somewhere else with her sleeping bag over her head.</p><p>“Always the little peacekeeper aren’t you Yaz? Running away so you don’t have to deal with your problems really seems to be your thing.” The Doctor taunted.</p><p>
  <em>Like you’re in any position to talk. You should be ashamed of yourself. Have you completely lost it?</em>
</p><p>Yaz froze in shock, not quite able to believe what the Doctor had said to her. Despite everything that had happened, everything she had said the last few days, Yaz hadn’t thought the Doctor was cruel. Until now.</p><p>She swallowed, aware that Graham and Ryan were watching her, waiting for her response. She wanted to cry but she wasn’t going to give the Doctor the satisfaction. As calmly as she could she crossed the room, collected her sleeping bag and took it into the corner furthest away from the Doctor. Silently she removed her boots and tucked them in against the wall, resisting the temptation to throw them into the middle of the room where the Doctor would hopefully trip over them later.</p><p>Realising that Yaz wasn’t going to say anything Ryan leapt to her defence.</p><p>“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded angrily, standing up to face her.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>Ryan snorted in disbelief. “No Doctor, you’re not. Two panic attacks in one day. Picking fights and arguing with us. You’re not eating and you look like shit. And what you just said to Yaz? I can’t believe you could be so callous.”</p><p>She actually laughed. “You didn’t know I could be callous?” she mocked. “Well excuse me Ryan but you know nothing about me.”</p><p>Ryan looked at her through narrowed eyes… something was off.</p><p>Graham picked up where he left off. “Doc it ain’t like we haven’t tried to get to know you now is it? We’re supposed to be your friends. You’re the one who keeps telling us we’re your fam.”</p><p>She turned to him, her expression like thunder. “I don’t <em>have</em> a family.”</p><p>“What happened to them Doc?” he had to know, ever since Ryan had planted that seed of doubt in his mind earlier. He didn’t want to think it was possible, that she was a murderer… but he couldn’t get it out of his head. Ryan was his grandson and Yaz as good as his granddaughter, they were his priority and he would keep them safe.</p><p>“They’re dead. Gone. Lost them. Gave up the ghost. Passed on. Kicked the bucket. However you want to say it.”</p><p>He pushed. He had to know. “How Doc?”</p><p>She giggled. An actual honest to God giggle. It sounded wrong coming from her. “My fault. I killed them.”</p><p>“Oh my god” said Ryan slowly, looking at her in horror. “You’re drunk.”</p><p>She hiccupped. Ryan noticed that she was holding the wall for support. He had thought it was because her ankle was hurting her but now he wondered if it was so she could keep her balance.</p><p>“I can't get drunk.”</p><p>“You’re on something! You’re completely off your face.”</p><p>“Fuck off Ryan. I am thousands of years old, I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”</p><p>There was a definite slur to her words.</p><p>Graham shook his head sadly and went to find her sleeping bag which he thrust into her arms. “Sleep it off Doc, we can talk about it in the morning.”</p><p>“You’re not <em>my</em> grandad Graham.”</p><p>“No I’m not” he said angrily. Truthfully, he saw her as his grandkid just as much as the other two, age difference be damned. “And if I were, I absolutely would not be putting up with this shit from you.”</p><p>He stomped away from her loudly to make a point, fetching his own and Ryan’s sleeping bag and dousing the fire. There was no way he was leaving it lit unattended after earlier. Or when the Doctor was blind drunk, literally.</p><p>He watched her while she struggled to get her sleeping bag out of its case, she was all fingers and thumbs trying to open the toggle. Eventually she gave up and threw it across the room, shouting an expletive at it, where it hit Graham solidly in the head before rolling against the wall.</p><p>It was the last straw for Yaz who got out of bed where she had been watching the whole scene unfold silently. Her eyes were blazing with fury.</p><p>“Oi! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.</p><p>“Oooh now Officer Khan has come to have a go. Are you going to arrest me? Put me in prison where I belong.” she jeered.</p><p>Yaz ignored her. “You just hit Graham in the face with your sleeping bag. Go and pick it up.”</p><p>“Make me.” She said with a ‘take me on if you dare’ expression on her face.</p><p>“Doctor pick up your sleeping bag if for no other reason so that <em>you</em> don’t fall over it in the middle of the night and hurt either yourself or one of us.”</p><p>The Doctor leaned back against the wall, smirking slightly.</p><p>Yaz grabbed her upper arm tightly and frog marched her over to where the sleeping bag had landed. She forced her to bend down and shoved the sleeping bag into her arms while the Doctor swore loudly at her. At least that’s what it sounded like, she had clearly given up on English.</p><p>None too gently, Yaz guided her around the sleeping bags on the floor where Ryan and Graham were, untoggled the Doctors sleeping bag for her and pulled her down to the ground so she could get in.</p><p>Surprisingly, the Doctor did as she was bidden although she made her feelings about the matter quite clear which Yaz ignored.</p><p>Yaz stood over her. She didn’t know if the Doctor knew she was there or not but she didn’t want her getting up and wandering around the cabin again. Apart from anything else, there were three of them lying across it and she was bound to step on someone or fall and leave at least one person with an injury.</p><p>Unbelievably, within a few minutes she was snoring. Yaz bent down and rolled her onto her side, dumping the open sleeping bag over her.</p><p>“What are you doing?” asked Ryan from the other side of the room.</p><p>“If she’s drunk and she vomits lying on her back like that she’ll choke. Despite how much she’s behaving like a total asshole right now I don’t want her dead or regenerating or whatever the hell it is she does. Not exactly a dignified way to go is it.”</p><p>“That was seriously impressive mate anyway. Can't believe she listened to you.”</p><p>“Like being back at work on a Saturday night.” Yaz shrugged.</p><p>“Yaz” asked Graham gently “What she said to you, are you alright?”</p><p>“I just can’t believe she’s been getting herself drunk rather than talk to us.”</p><p>“I think she's in a lot more pain than she's letting on.” Said Graham sadly.</p><p>“Do you believe what she said? That she killed her family?”</p><p>“Yes.” Yaz said without hesitation. “But I very much doubt that’s the whole story.”</p><p>“We can talk to her in the morning when she’s sober.”</p><p>“Great, the Doctor with a hangover, that’ll make her more likely to open up.” Grumbled Ryan sarcastically.</p><p>Yaz picked up her sleeping bag and moved it so it was in front of the door.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“I honestly wouldn’t put it past her to try and sneak out of here in the morning. Would you?”</p><p>There was an uncomfortable silence.</p><p>No, they would not.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I get so confused about the details of the Time War, hope I didn't get it too wrong!</p><p>I teach one of the year groups heading back to school in England on Monday so I'm afraid updates will slow down a bit. I will continue to alternate them with Shattered if you're reading it also.</p><p>Thank-you for all your lovely comments, they really make my day!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They hadn’t been asleep for long when a blood curdling scream woke them with a start.</p><p>“What the bloody hell is that?” came Ryan’s voice sounding nervous while Graham relit their lamp.</p><p>“It’s the Doctor, she’s having a nightmare” Yaz explained, recognising the sound. She sat up and scrambled out of her sleeping bag for her water bottle, fumbling a little in the dark.</p><p>“Christ, not a bit of wonder she avoids sleeping.” He mumbled, watching as Yaz tipped her bottle over the Doctor’s face and she sat bolt upright, spluttering and gasping for breath. Yaz blinked as light from the lamp finally filled the cabin.</p><p>“Are you alright Doctor?” asked Yaz quietly, backing up out of her personal space.</p><p>“I’m fine.” She muttered, turning her head away from Yaz’s voice. Ironic considering she didn’t have to look at her anyway.</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>“Leave me alone Yasmin.” she snapped.</p><p>Yaz turned to the boys and rolled her eyes. She was quite obviously not fine. She was shaking, sweating and panting. The use of her full name hadn’t escaped her notice.</p><p>
  <em>I’m calling you Yaz because we’re friends now… so what, we aren’t friends anymore?</em>
</p><p>“Course you are.” Yaz replied. “I’ll go back to bed then.” She crossed the cabin, stepping carefully over Ryan and the four packs on the floor, Graham had taken the bed, and settled back down.</p><p>“Where are you going?” Yaz asked exasperatedly, noticing the Doctor climbing out of her own sleeping bag.</p><p>“I don’t need <em>your</em> permission to do anything Yasmin.”</p><p>“Fine. Tell you what, if you make it out the door and down the steps without falling flat on your face I won't say any more. But Ryan and I and all four backpacks are lying on the floor at the moment. If you don’t make it I get to say I told you so.”</p><p>The Doctor glared at her with such ferocity that Yaz was glad she didn’t have anything in her hand to throw again, watching her lose control was frightening, but to Yaz’s relief she sat back down though she really didn’t look too happy about it.</p><p>Yaz rummaged in her pack and found the cards they had been playing with earlier. “Here” she said, sliding them across the floor where they hit the Doctor’s foot lightly. “Play solitaire, go back to sleep or actually sit and talk to us and maybe we can help.”</p><p>“I <em>said</em> I’m <em>fine</em>.” She was shouting again.</p><p>“Great. Then I’m going back to sleep.” Yaz huffed and rolled over so she was facing the door even though the Doctor couldn’t see the gesture.</p><p>Yaz wiped her eyes. The Doctor calling her Yasmin was weird, usually only her parents called her that when she was in trouble. It felt like a massive great sign that some part of their relationship had fundamentally shifted and she wasn’t sure it could ever go back to the way it was before.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Yaz was very disappointed when she woke up and saw that it was still raining outside, meaning that for the time being they were still trapped. It didn’t look as heavy through so that was something, and it was still dark out so maybe there was time.</p><p>She stretched and sat up slowly, blinking to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Ryan and Graham were still asleep and to her surprise the Doctor was playing cards, seemingly much calmer than she had been when she had woken during the night.</p><p>“Morning” greeted Yaz nervously.</p><p>“Yasmin” she replied, not looking up and her tone of voice not giving anything away. Was she still angry? Yaz couldn’t tell.</p><p>“Are you winning?”</p><p>She shrugged.</p><p>“Are you going to be this communicative all day?” Yaz asked, keeping her tone deliberately light.</p><p>“What do you want from me Yasmin?”</p><p>Yaz thought about her words carefully. “I miss you is all.”</p><p>“I’m sitting right in front of you.”</p><p>“No you’re not. I don’t know where your heads at these days Doctor but it isn’t with us. I know you don’t want to hear it but we’re very worried about you. Whatever is going on in your head is eating you up inside and you’re clearly unhappy to say the least.”</p><p>“I keep telling you, I’m fine.”</p><p>“Do you know what a bad liar you are?”</p><p>She actually laughed at that, a horrible, cold laugh that sent chills down Yaz’s spine, her mouth twisting unpleasantly. “Oh Yasmin Khan, I am an excellent liar. My wife’s Rule Number One: The Doctor lies.”</p><p>“Not about this you’re not.” She was feeling braver than she had that night in the tent, especially knowing Ryan and Graham were awake now and watching the exchange quietly. Plus, she thought unkindly, she would be easy to outrun given that she couldn’t see.</p><p>“Given what you said last night Doc, I think we deserve some kind of explanation.”</p><p>“I take you to see the universe. I don’t owe you anything.”</p><p>“Do you even remember what you said or were you too drunk?” Ryan asked scathingly.</p><p>Yaz knew his dad had problems with alcohol and while he enjoyed a drink, he had no patience for people that got so drunk they couldn’t function.</p><p>“I can't get drunk.”</p><p>“I’ll take that as you don’t remember. And you might not have been on alcohol like we know it, but you were completely off your face.”</p><p>
  <em>Shit, what did I say?</em>
</p><p>“Doctor…” asked Graham gently, she turned to him in surprise. He never called her that. “… tell us where your family are.”</p><p>“My family are dead Graham, you know that.” Her voice was hard, unemotional.</p><p>“What happened to them?”</p><p>“I really don’t want to talk about it.” She snapped.</p><p>“I know you don’t. But last night you told us you killed them and given that we are now all trapped in a very small space I think we need some kind of explanation about that. You can't say it and then expect us not to ask.”</p><p>The three of them held their breath. Yaz hadn’t expected him to go right out and say it. Neither did the Doctor if the expression on her face was anything to go by. She looked like they had just slapped her across the face and was clearly weighing up her options.</p><p>The silence stretched into minutes, neither side willing to break it.</p><p>
  <em>When did we stop being friends and start having sides?</em>
</p><p>“There was a war.” She said finally, her voice low. “A long time ago, between my people and the Daleks. I was a soldier. The Last Great Time War, people being forced to die again and again and senseless destruction. I had a choice. I could end the Daleks for a price and I paid it. I killed my people too, every last man, woman and child from my planet but also every last Dalek. I can hear them constantly, 2.47 billion children screaming. But the Daleks weren’t gone, I can never be rid of them. My people died in vain and I was the only one left. For hundreds of years I had to live with what I had done. And then I was able to bring them back, save them in a tiny pocket of the universe where they were all there, safe. But the Master showed up. He said he found out something about them, the Time Lords, something so bad that he took it upon himself to destroy Gallifrey. I don’t know what it was, but now I'm the only one left. Again. Apart from him.”</p><p>There was silence.</p><p>There was no doubt she was finally telling them the truth as she sat, slumped against the wall, face expressionless and looking utterly defeated.</p><p>What did you say when you found out your friend, a blonde energizer bunny in a coat and rainbows had committed genocide? When she told you she was the very last but one of her species? That she had fixed it, but still had to live with what she had done, alone? That her best friend had gone and destroyed it again?</p><p>How did you deal with one of those issues let alone all of them?</p><p>How was she still functioning?</p><p>“You went there after dropping off Noor and Ada didn’t you? That’s when you found out. That’s when you changed.”</p><p>She gave a small nod of confirmation. “He left me a message. I waited until you went to bed and then I watched it and went.”</p><p>“You said you’ve been going home when you drop us off places and disappear. What are you doing there?”</p><p>“Searching for survivors.”</p><p>“And… have there been any?” Yaz asked tentatively.</p><p>“No. He knew what he was doing.”</p><p>
  <em>The images of Gallifrey burning intruded across her mind again, what had he done with the bodies? She had spent years searching for them and hadn’t been able to find a single one.</em>
</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell us love? This has been killing you.”</p><p>“Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way I know you’re all looking at me right now. Not exactly something you just slip into conversation is it? What would I have said? Oh by the way fam, I committed genocide against my own people. Any issues with that? Don’t worry, I can drop you off in Sheffield when we got out of here and you can pretend it never happened.”</p><p>“So that’s it? We know your secret so you get rid of us? Cause no offence Doc but you really seem to be lacking in the friend department and you really really sound like you could use some.”</p><p>“Graham, think about what I just told you. Clearly I’m dangerous and you should absolutely run before I get you killed. Especially now that I'm blind, I can't protect you.”</p><p>“First off, I think we have a right to make our own decisions on what we want about our lives. Second off, your ability to see will in no way impact the decision. Just… give us some time to think about it, you’ve given us a lot of information.” He finished stuffing his sleeping bag into its pack and turned to face her, hands on his hips.</p><p>“Doctor!” Yaz said urgently from where she was standing beside the window. “You remember you thought we were being followed?”</p><p>She was standing in an instant. “What? What have you seen?”</p><p>“There was something outside the window but when it saw that it was spotted it ran.”</p><p>“What did it look like?”</p><p>“Tall. Must be well over eight feet if it can see through that window. Kind of like a snake, covered in large, shimmery green scales but with arms and legs. Massive yellow eyes protruding out of its head, no nose or ears.”</p><p>“Pack, we need to get out of here.” She ordered, already rolling up her own sleeping bag.</p><p>“What was it?”</p><p>“I can't be sure.”</p><p>“You think you know. Tell us.”</p><p>“It sounds like a Herpó. But I can't work out why there would be one here. They don’t live on Troome, there’s nothing here for them. It must be lost.”</p><p>“How afraid should we be Doctor?”</p><p>“Well the good news is that it doesn’t usually go for humans…”</p><p>“Not filling us with confidence here Doc…”</p><p>“But it will if it hasn’t eaten for a while. It could swallow me or Yaz whole, you two it would tear in half. First time I’ve enjoyed being this small. Either way it would bite you first which would instantly paralyse you. Still able to feel and think but every muscle in your body frozen and you would suffocate in agony. And it would enjoy watching they like to play with their food.”</p><p>“Right, so we’ll want to avoid that then.” Said Ryan, his wide eyes giving away his emotions even though his flippant voice didn’t.</p><p>“I have antidote in the TARDIS medbay. Second cabinet on the right, third drawer down, there’s a silver vial of the antidote with four yellow circles on. It needs 10mg injected directly into the heart. You have about ten minutes from when a person is bitten before irreversible brain damage kicks in, another five before they’re dead.”</p><p>“What about you?”</p><p>“What about me?”</p><p>“Your anatomy is different to ours. If you get bitten what do we need to do?”</p><p>“I won’t.”</p><p>“Doctor, the reason you just told us that was in case you weren’t in a position to help. So tell us, if you get bitten what do we need to do?”</p><p>“I have longer, probably a little over twenty minutes before the brain damage would kick in, half an hour or so before I would be dead. 10mg into each heart but you probably wouldn’t have time, most likely by that point I would regenerate anyway.”</p><p>“What do you know about them?”</p><p>“Herpó have ears inside their heads and they smell through their tongue, they’re a distant relative of earth snakes. But they aren’t fast and they’re unlikely to attack if we’re all together. We need to stick together, I only heard one the other day, did you just see one Yaz?”</p><p>“Yeah just the one.”</p><p>“Okay that’s good, very good. They’re easily intimidated and are more likely to launch a surprise attach against a lone traveller or someone who is already weak or injured.” She paused for a moment, realising that being blind and having a badly damaged ankle that was slowing her down made her a prime target. But it was better her than them.</p><p>“Now they have extremely sensitive hearing, much better than mine but poor eyesight which actually works out well for us because their natural habitat is like an earth desert and they’re used to using a form of echo-location along with their sight to navigate. But this territory is so different to their natural one that it should confuse it, way more stuff to absorb sounds and bounce sounds off.”</p><p>“So what’s the plan?”</p><p>“Head for the river, if it looks passable, we cross it to the other side and land upstream a bit, that’ll ensure it loses our scent.”</p><p>“And if it’s not passable?”</p><p>“We walk fast, stick together and don’t show any weakness. That includes me, if it hasn’t already figured out that I'm blind, we can't let it know. You have to promise me, if it figures it out that you’ll run. Take the sonic and go, it'll let you know when you’re close to the TARDIS, she has emergency protocols, she’ll take you home to the right time zone.”</p><p>“You can't be serious Doctor?” asked Ryan incredulously.</p><p>“I need you to be safe.”</p><p>“And we need <em>you</em> to be safe.”</p><p>“He’s right Doctor, there’s no way in hell we’re leaving you behind.”</p><p>“If I’m slowing you down…”</p><p>“Are you going to suggest we leave Ryan behind now because of his dyspraxia? Or how about Graham because he’s the slowest? Demanded Yaz.</p><p>“No of course not but…”</p><p>“But nothing. Sit down and let me take that brace off, you can’t walk through a forest with it on.”</p><p>“Yaz…”</p><p>
  <em>So we’re back to Yaz are we?</em>
</p><p>“No. You’re supposed to be my best friend but you have been unbelievably cruel and hurtful this trip. Explaining doesn’t take that hurt away, in fact I’m furious that you kept all that bottled up inside for so long, you should have told us what the Master had done even if you didn’t tell us the rest. It doesn’t give you the right to lash out at your friends. We’ve been worrying about you for months and I have even more questions so sit down, shut up and let me strap your ankle up with something you can actually walk on.”</p><p>“Yaz I…”</p><p>“Seriously Doc, don’t argue with her because you're lucky looks can't kill from the one you’re getting right now. Plus she restrained you as easily as if you were a ten year old last night and I really wouldn’t put it past her again because she looks way more annoyed now than she did then.”</p><p>Finally, the Doctor sat down with a dramatic roll of her eyes and held out her ankle without further complaint. It looked considerably better than it had the day before and the bruises had faded to a nasty greenish-yellow for the most part but they were still prominent and her ankle was still swollen. Yaz was quick as she wrapped it tightly in a new bandage before handing the Doctor her shoe which she laced quickly and then stood up, ready to go.  </p><p>“We have to leave as soon as it’s light. Has it stopped raining?”</p><p>“Almost.  We have time to eat. You need to eat Doctor.”</p><p>“You lot go ahead, I’m not that hungry.”</p><p>“When was the last time you ate?”</p><p>“Yesterday with you lot…Hey! Yaz” What are you doing… get out of my pockets!” the Doctor exclaimed crossly as Yaz rummaged through them, effectively catching the Doctor’s wrist when she tried to stop her.</p><p>“Here. Plenty of food. Pick one.” She thrust the four tablets into the hand of the Doctor’s that she was still holding. “Any particular reason why you’re not eating?”</p><p>“I don’t need to eat as much as you do.”</p><p>“See if that was true Doctor you would just say it instead of hiding food in your pockets. You’ve lost a lot of weight, so you need to eat more than you are.”</p><p>“She’s right Doctor, your face is practically hollow.”</p><p>“Why are you all making personal remarks? I don’t go round insulting you.”</p><p>They ignored the fact that she had made it her personal mission to upset them as much as possible the last few days, pushing them away in case they learned her secret.”</p><p>“We’re not trying to insult you Doc. Goes back to us worrying about you.”</p><p>“We don’t know how long we might be here, we can't risk running out.”</p><p>“So your plan was what? You don’t eat until you pass out or become too weak to walk? Then what?”</p><p>She didn’t answer.</p><p>Yaz took three of them off her and chucked them to Ryan and Graham, keeping one for herself.</p><p>“Eat. If you’re going to hike through a forest and swim across a river then you need food just like the rest of us.”</p><p>“<em>You</em> need to stop acting like my mother.”</p><p>“No we don’t Doc. You have to be the worst person I’ve ever met at taking care of yourself. We’re your fam, if you don’t take care of yourself we will do it for you. And as the designated Grandad of this group we are not leaving this cabin until you have eaten be that in ten minutes or ten days.”</p><p>“There’s a Herpó right outside Graham, we don’t have time for this. It will be observing us and strategizing on how to get in.”</p><p>“Then stop wasting it and eat something before you fall over Doc.” He snapped, uncharacteristically annoyed.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Twenty minutes later when the Doctor had eaten the most scrutinised meal of her life they were ready to go. They couldn’t see the Herpó and the Doctor couldn’t hear it moving around so they had decided to make a break for it. Graham and Ryan were leading the way, followed by Yaz and the Doctor who was once again holding Yaz’s elbow.</p><p>“Remember” she hissed “We need to stick together, be strong and tall and confident. No sign of weakness.”</p><p>“Doc, stop panicking, we’ve been in way more precarious situations than this.”</p><p>
  <em>Yeah but not when I can't see my own hand in front of my face. </em>
</p><p>Cautiously, they descended the steps. The ground was slick with rain, it was still coming down but it was no worse than a heavy rain shower on earth.</p><p>They had only been walking a few minutes when Yaz felt the Doctor moving in close. She leaned forward, resting her chin on Yaz’s shoulder and breathed into her ear “It’s behind us. Don’t panic, just keep walking but we’re going to have to go across the river, it’s the only way to lose it. Otherwise it will follow us relentlessly and we won't be able to stop for anything, it has excellent stamina. Can you swim?”</p><p>“Yes, don’t think Ryan can though.”</p><p>“We’ll help him, it’ll be fine.”</p><p>She stretched out the hand that wasn’t holding Yaz’s arms and found Ryan’s and took hold of both him and Graham, repeating her message to them, before reaching cautiously behind her to find Yaz again.</p><p>“Apparently Graham used to be a lifeguard. Who knew? He’s going to help Ryan.”</p><p>Yaz suppressed an urge to giggle as she thought of Graham walking around in board shorts on a pool side somewhere.</p><p>“No pressure everyone but it’s getting closer, let’s pick up the pace.” The Doctor breathed softly, tightening her grip on Yaz’s arm.</p><p>“River’s just ahead of us Doctor, are you ready?”</p><p>“What’s it like?”</p><p>“Very swollen, fast. Looks cold and deep. There’ve been rocks protruding the entire time we’ve been following it but I can’t see any. I don’t know if that means they aren’t there or if they’re lurking out of sight. If you’re sure this is the only way to get rid of that thing then I’ll trust you but if there is any other way, now is the time.”</p><p>“I’m sorry Yaz, if there was any other option.”</p><p>“Well then in that case Doctor… JUMP!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The Doctor is a mean drunk :/</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well then in that case Doctor… JUMP!”</p><p>She slid her hand down Yaz’s arm, grabbing her hand tightly and following her as they took a leap off the cliff face. She wished she’d had time to ask how big a jump it was.</p><p>She was falling, falling endlessly with only Yaz’s uncomfortably tight grip of her hand to remind her that this wasn’t going to last for ever. She could hear screaming, she wasn’t sure who it was. Was it her? That thought was interrupted by a terrific splash and suddenly she was under water, submerged in icy cold water, no sense of which way was up, kicking and fighting but no idea if she was going in the right direction. She had lost Yaz’s hand.  Was this it? Was she going to drown? What an undignified end that would be. Her coat was caught on something, it was pulling her further under water, what lived in this river? She tried to push it off but it clung on, kicking her arms out of the way. Her head was feeling light now. If she wasn’t already blind the world would have been going dark. She tried one more feeble kick to get away before she relaxed, too exhausted to fight anymore. It was peaceful down here. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Doctor!”</p><p>Someone is slapping her cheek.</p><p>
  <em>Go away. I'm tired, let me sleep. </em>
</p><p>“Doctor you have to wake up now. No sleeping, come on.”</p><p>She groaned. With the infinity of the TARDIS couldn’t they entertain themselves for five minutes? Her bed was so warm and comfortable.</p><p>“Doctor! Wake up!”</p><p>
  <em>For God’s sake Yaz, do you have to be so needy? Leave me alone. </em>
</p><p>“DOCTOR!”</p><p>She blinked and opened her eyes. It was still dark. Why was it still dark?</p><p>She drew in a huge gasp of air, realising as she did so that she was cold, so very cold. And wet. Were they in the swimming pool? Why were they in the swimming pool?</p><p>“Hey, don’t go back to sleep. I need you to help me.”</p><p>
  <em>I'm too tired Yaz, maybe later.</em>
</p><p>“Doctor! We’ve been in freezing cold water way too long. You need to move. Come on! Now is not the time to be useless!”</p><p>Yaz looked around anxiously. The Doctor was totally out of it, whether she had hit her head on something or had just been under too long she wasn’t sure, it wasn’t important now. She could make out Ryan and Graham on the opposite bank in the distance. It looked like Graham had finally managed to get Ryan across the river safely and they were both out of the water now. That was good. But she and the Doctor were still in a very precarious situation.</p><p>Their hands had got ripped apart as they had hit the water. Yaz had surfaced almost immediately but it had taken her so long to find the Doctor and when she did, the other woman hadn’t even been fighting, just drifting beneath the water. Now she was clinging to a rock with one hand and doing her best to keep the Doctor’s head out of the water with the other.</p><p>She was desperately trying to rouse her, it was a dangerous swim and she wasn’t sure she could take them both across safely. But she couldn’t wait any longer, she knew she was getting dangerously cold.</p><p>Yaz tightened her grip around the Doctor’s waist and adjusted her hold so that when she lay back in the water the Doctor’s head and torso were resting on Yaz’s chest and mostly out of the water apart from the waves splashing over her face but she couldn’t do anything about that.</p><p>Letting go of the rock, her refuge of safety, was probably the most terrifying thing she had ever done. Dragging the Doctor’s weight through the water was a terrible burden, she was heavy and unwieldly, each splash and ripple threatening to usurp her unstable position.</p><p>Yaz kicked desperately, she knew not to fight the current, that would just make her tired, it would take it where it took her, she just needed to get across.</p><p>Yaz kept swimming, it felt like she had been swimming forever. The Doctor was getting heavier and heavier and Yaz could feel her muscles getting tired. Her whole body was tired, she just wanted to sleep.</p><p>Maybe she could close her eyes and rest just for a second.</p><p>Suddenly there were hands helping her, pulling her through the water. She concentrated on holding on tight to the Doctor but she could feel her concentration slipping.</p><p>“Yaz! Stay awake for me love, I’ve almost got you both to shore.”</p><p>
  <em>Graham. That was Graham’s voice.</em>
</p><p>“Just look at me Yaz, you’re safe. I’m going to take the Doctor now, let her go, I’ve got her, she’s safe.” He encouraged.</p><p>It took Yaz a moment to make her freezing cold, stiff fingers uncurl from where they were gripping the Doctor’s coat tightly.</p><p>She was vaguely aware of Graham dragging the Doctor to the bank and Ryan hauling her out of the water like a sack of potatoes before she felt Graham dragging her upright.</p><p>“Come on love, no sleeping now. We need to warm you up first.”</p><p>She managed to make her feet cooperate enough to walk up the steep bank, tripping slightly but Graham’s strong arm around her shoulders didn’t let her fall.</p><p>There’s a fire lit already and Ryan is sitting beside it, huddled under a sleeping bag. He’s dumped the Doctor in front of it, she's still out of it, and is staring at her like he doesn’t know what to do next.</p><p>“Yaz, you need to get out of your wet things, they’re making you colder. The packs are waterproof your sleeping bag will keep you warm” he manages to say through chattering teeth.</p><p>Yaz nods dumbly, beginning to strip down, not particularly concerned about her modesty as Ryan finds her sleeping bag for her and Graham is making them tea to warm up.</p><p>Relieved of her wet, heavy things Yaz already felt better but her head was pounding and she just wanted to sleep. But the Doctor was still unconscious on the ground. She knelt down beside her and shook her hard.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>Nervously she lent over her and checked her pulse, putting her head close to her mouth and was relieved to feel the Doctor’s breath softly against her cheek and her pulses beating steadily.</p><p>“Why’s she out of it and no one else is?” mused Yaz.</p><p>“Maybe she hit her head?”</p><p>Yaz lifted the Doctor’s head and felt it carefully but there was no sign of lumps, bumps, bruises or blood.</p><p>“No I don’t think so. Feels fine.”</p><p>“Maybe what ever she’s been putting into her system caught up with her? She’s was completely off her face last night, it’s not that long ago, only a couple of hours really. If it’s still in her system it could still be affecting her. Plus the overall lack of food, one meal won't make up for it.”</p><p>“Probably.” Agreed Yaz, she knew from sad experience on the job that drunk people who fell into cold water rarely survived.</p><p>“We should undress her and wrap her up.” Said Ryan nervously.</p><p>Yaz looked up to find Ryan and Graham staring at her.</p><p>“No! Why me?”</p><p>“You have the same parts?”  asked Ryan sheepishly.</p><p>“She's an alien, you don’t know that! And I have no desire to find out thanks very much!”</p><p>“Guys, she’s freezing, alien or not. Move it.” Argued Graham from where he was trying to bank up the fire to produce more heat.</p><p>Yaz rolled her eyes and started off safely by pulling off the Doctor’s boots and socks while Ryan was procrastinating and rummaging for her sleeping bag. Next came her trousers. She was surprised to see that the Doctor was wearing men’s boxer shorts under there. They had to work together to get her out of her coat which was a tonne weight considering how much junk she kept in the pockets before finally getting her t-shirts off. Ryan immediately covered his eyes upon realising that the Doctor wasn’t wearing a bra and Yaz rolled her eyes at him, covering her up quickly.</p><p>She made a mental note to remind herself to teach the Doctor about women’s underwear when this was all over.</p><p>“So do we let her sleep it off or try and wake her?”</p><p>“She’ll probably wake herself screaming again before long”</p><p>“We should try and wake her. It’s not good to be cold and unconscious.”</p><p>Yaz shook her shoulders roughly while Ryan was slapping her cheek and calling her name.</p><p>Without warning she gasped and sat up suddenly, headbutting Yaz in the process.</p><p>“OW! For crying out loud Doctor that’s the third time you’ve done that in two days!” she grunted, massaging her jaw where it had collided with the Doctor’s forehead.</p><p>Ryan had his hand on her shoulder. “Doctor, chill out. We got across the river. No sign of the Herpó that we can see. You passed out though…” he handed her her sleeping bag from where it had slipped and averted his eyes. “We had to get you out of your wet things. Didn’t look or anything but yeah.”</p><p>“Do you remember jumping?” asked Yaz.</p><p>“Yeah. It felt like we were falling for ages.”</p><p>“It wasn’t that high. As soon as we hit the water you and I got separated. You didn’t surface, it took me ages to find you, you…”</p><p>
  <em>You weren’t fighting. You’d given up.</em>
</p><p>… “you were half conscious but you kept fighting me off. I got us most of the way over here but Graham had to come and help. We would have both drowned if it wasn’t for him.”</p><p>“We don’t know why you passed out, you didn’t hit your head or anything as far as we can tell, don’t know if you were just under for too long or if whatever you took last night is still in your system…”</p><p>The Doctor flushed with shame at Grahams words.</p><p>
  <em>Thought you wanted to keep them safe you moron. Still too drunk to do it.</em>
</p><p>By the look on her face Graham knew he had hit the nail on the head. He shook his head sadly while Ryan walked away from her in disgust. Yaz just watched her, wondering what the hell had happened to the woman who was supposed to be her hero.</p><p>“We should get going. Where are my clothes?” she said, standing up, not wanting their eyes on her. She could feel them. Humans, they always felt things so loudly.</p><p>“We need to rest Doc.”</p><p>“No, we need to move. We need to find the TARDIS. You spent all night sleeping.”</p><p>“Yeah and then we all got plunged into an icy river. You’ve spent the last half hour unconscious and Yaz nearly died trying to get you both across the river. She’s still blue and in no fit state to go anywhere. Besides our clothes are still wet and freezing but this fire is warm so sit down.”</p><p>
  <em>Yaz nearly died? What? How? Why? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Look at what you’ve done now. You think this feels bad? Imagine how much worse it would feel if Yaz died trying to save you because you were too drunk to look after yourself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! </em>
</p><p>“Where’s my coat?”</p><p>“We aren’t going anywhere Doctor.”</p><p>“Just give me my coat Ryan. I want my sonic. Need to see if there’s any sign of Herpó activity in this area.” She was lying through her teeth. She could wave the sonic around all she wanted but she couldn’t read the damn results.</p><p>Ryan pressed her sodden coat into her hands and she quietly slipped a few more ginger sweets out of her pocket. She couldn’t deal with the fam right now.  She waved the sonic around for show and then moved back until her back hit a tree so she could wait them out. None of them were talking and right now, she preferred it that way.</p><p>She savoured the sweets in her mouth. She had been more careful this time, she didn’t have enough so that the fam would notice (she hoped) but enough to give her a pleasant buzz and forget.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A couple of hours later, after she had had several more ginger humbugs <em>(after all, one more wouldn’t hurt would it?) </em>someone, she had no idea who as she hadn’t been paying the slightest bit of attention, thrust her clothes into her hands. She ran her fingers over them, they were mostly dry though putting her feet back into her cold, damp boots would be unpleasant and she dressed herself as best she could under the sleeping bag, not really knowing why she was bothering seeing as they had apparently all seen it all already. At least they had left her underwear on.</p><p>Dressed, she got up and rolled her sleeping bag clumsily. She could hear the others talking quietly amongst themselves, they had been all afternoon, but she wasn’t sure what lay between them or where exactly her pack was. And none of them seemed to have noticed her dilemma. She gritted her teeth.</p><p>“Uhh fam?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>
  <em>Don’t make me say it. </em>
</p><p>“Little help?”</p><p>They fell silent for a moment and then she could hear someone coming over, she wasn’t sure who. Whoever it was grabbed her arms from behind and began to push her to where they wanted her to go. <em>Graham</em>.</p><p>“Graham I’ve told you before, <em>don’t</em> push me!” she growled aggressively.</p><p>“Sorry Doctor, I forgot.” Apologised the voice beside her.</p><p>
  <em>For God’s sake that’s Ryan’s voice.</em>
</p><p>She pulled her own arms out of his grasp crossly and managed to catch his arm. He walked very <em>very</em> slowly and it put her teeth on edge.</p><p>“Is walking this slow a dyspraxia thing?” she asked viciously.</p><p>He sped up, marching her over to where the others were and shook his arm free, she could hear him walking away from her.</p><p>
  <em>Great, now you’ve upset him too. You just became the bullies from his childhood but worse.</em>
</p><p>“That was disgusting” came Yaz’s voice from right in front of her. “Take your pack and let’s go.”</p><p>“I really don’t need you to be my moral compass Yasmin.”</p><p>
  <em>I’m calling you Yaz because we’re friends now.</em>
</p><p>“Really? You seem to have lost yours somewhere. I know you're hurting and I'm sorry about that but taking it out on us isn’t going to make you feel any better. And you might not need me to be your moral compass, but you do need me to stop you falling flat on your face so let’s go. Ryan and Graham are already walking.”</p><p>“I don’t need you to do anything for me.”</p><p>She was shouting again. Yaz however was infuriatingly calm.</p><p>“Fine. You don’t need it. But I'm going to give you my arm anyway because if you break your leg it'll be me who has to deal with it and all of us will be stuck here for even longer.”</p><p>The Doctor glared at her and finally relented, sticking her arm out which Yaz took and guided her round the campfire and a couple of rocks safely.</p><p>Yaz walked quickly, anxious to catch up with the men and not particularly interested in having to spend any alone time with the Doctor if she didn’t have to. She was already going to have to spend the night and morning crammed into a teeny tiny tent with her.</p><p>For the time being the ground was smooth and flat and they made swift progress though the Doctor was continuously stumbling. It actually reminded Yaz of the English countryside, if the English countryside had purple grass. There was also a distinct lack of cows.</p><p>Yaz was glad it was such easy going because it meant she had very little need to speak to the Doctor at all. The whole group was quiet apart from Graham’s heavy breathing and Yaz knew Ryan was very upset by the Doctor’s words. She had never before doubted his abilities because of his dyspraxia, never treated him like he was stupid. Had actively encouraged him to do things he had never thought possible, spent hours letting him help her with TARDIS maintenance, never once thinking he couldn’t do it. So for her, of all people, to make such a thoughtless comment had really upset him.</p><p>So far Graham was the only one who had really escaped her wrath relatively unscathed but Yaz was sure his time would come.</p><p>Finally, after having her arm pulled hard for at least the twelfth time as the Doctor stumbled Yaz stopped, right on the edge of more forest.</p><p>“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.</p><p>She scrunched her brow. “Nothing!”</p><p>“You’re lying.”</p><p>“No, I’m not. I’m fine.” The Doctor insisted.</p><p>“Are you drunk again?” asked Ryan, in thinly veiled disgust.</p><p>“I can't get drunk. We’ve had this conversation and it’s getting pretty boring now.”</p><p>“Well whatever you're taking instead of dealing with your problems Doc?” asked Graham, his tone was gentle and understanding.</p><p>“There’s nothing wrong with me!”</p><p>“You’re going to pull my arm out of its socket if you keep tripping.”</p><p>“I’m blind in case you hadn’t noticed Yasmin, means I can’t see where I’m going and avoid things so I’ve very sorry if I’ve tripped a few times!” her voice was dripping in sarcasm.</p><p> “This is the smoothest terrain we’ve dealt with by far Doctor so don’t feed me that crap.”</p><p>“Can we just go?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Excuse me!?”</p><p>“I’m not walking with you anywhere until you tell us what you're on.”</p><p>“I’m not on anything!”</p><p>“Well I don’t believe you so I guess we’re stuck aren’t we?”</p><p>“You know what Yasmin; this is probably why your girlfriend went off you and joined with whatsherface. You're taking advantage of me not being able to see to make me do what <em>you</em> want and make me admit to things that aren’t true. Are you going to force me to date you too? Is that why you keep walking with me? Because I am <em>really</em> not interested.”</p><p>Yaz was taken aback. Never in a million years did she think the Doctor would take something so personal and throw it back in her face like that. She had told her that no one knew, that it was private, that she was only the second person she had ever told and what had happened when she had been outed before she was ready. Not that Graham or Ryan would care about her sexuality, but that really wasn’t the point.</p><p>She was glad that her police training gave her control over her emotions because right now she was alternating between wanting to slap the Doctor or cry. But she did neither. Instead, after a glimpse at the fading light she dumped her pack on the ground.</p><p>“Get the tents out, we’re camping here.”</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank-you for waiting, sorry it took so long. Also thank-you for all your supportive messages about taking the kids back to school, it was very hard and I just wasn't in the mood to write this week.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yaz was curled up comfortably in her sleeping bag though she was still cold after her swim. She had been in bed for more than an hour as had Ryan, but Graham and the Doctor had stayed at the fire. There had been little conversation between them and although Yaz hadn’t been able to make out the words it sounded like Graham had been angry, the Doctor defensive and deflective.</p><p>Yaz listened to the zip of the boy’s tent and the familiar buzz of the sonic screwdriver as the Doctor sealed it. Now she would be on her own to cross the fifteen or so paces between the two tents. The ground was smooth and flat, the only real obstacle would be the remaining embers of the fire though she shouldn’t get particularly close to it but if she went off course she would be in bother. Or just end up hopelessly lost in the giant field. Yaz resisted the urge to go and help her. If she wanted help, she could bloody well ask for it.</p><p>Yaz waited for a long time and was on the verge of giving in and going to find her when the Doctor found the tent by crashing into it. Yaz watched the slight dip from her hand as she trailed her fingers around the outside of the tent to find the entrance. Yaz shuffled over slightly so she was against the wall of the tent and quickly feigned sleep. She had no desire to speak to the Doctor anymore tonight.</p><p>“Yaz?” the Doctor whispered loudly from the entrance.</p><p>Yaz ignored her, trying to keep her breathing deep and even. She watched as the Doctor cautiously reached out until she found Yaz’s sleeping bag, patting it gently until she found Yaz’s knee where she was curled up tightly. The Doctor’s features relaxed slightly upon finding her companion and she came into the tent all the way, sealing it behind her and tucking her boots and coat into the small well at the end of the tent out of the way. She crawled up to her own sleeping bag but sat on top of it, cross legged and straight backed.</p><p>
  <em>I know you’re not asleep Yaz. You're lousy at pretending. And I can feel you staring at me. I'm sorry Yaz, what I did was unacceptable. I don’t blame you for hating me. If it’s any consolation, I hate me too. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I haven’t always been a good person, but I usually try not to be a bad one. Don’t worry, when we get out of here, I’ll drop you off and you never have to see me again. I’ve been the worst friend imaginable to you. I’ve had anger for a long time, but I never let it get the better of me like this before. It’s not an excuse or an explanation but I wish I could tell you that. Every time I open my mouth it comes out wrong and I end up hurting you even more. I’m so sorry. You would be so much better off if we had never met.</em>
</p><p>The Doctor sat as still as she could, fidgeting a little with her hands until she heard Yaz’s breaths even out and her heart rate slow down. Then she flopped down beside her on her back. Somehow it had felt wrong to lie next to her, knowing she was awake and despised her so much. Even though they had individual sleeping bags it felt like too high a level of intimacy. Not that the situation wasn’t entirely her own doing. A couple of months ago they would have laid next to each other chatting for hours and she would have secretly enjoyed the forced camping trip and the chance to be with the fam in the relatively low stress situation. Now she was going to lose them. And it was entirely her own fault. And then she would be alone. Again.</p><p>She had already decided she wouldn’t be inviting anyone else on board the TARIDS. She didn’t deserve anyone.</p><p>Yaz did not have a peaceful night. She tossed and turned repeatedly. She didn’t seem to be having full blown nightmares, the Doctor would have woken her if she had, but she kept whimpering and muttering. At one point Yaz rolled over, her face landing next to the Doctor’s thigh. Instead of recoiling in disgust like the Doctor knew she would have done had she been awake Yaz snuggled in closer, relaxing a little more. The Doctor’s hand hovered over Yaz’s head, unsure, and she gently stroked Yaz’s sweat-damp hair from her face. Yaz’s cheeks were wet, she had been crying in her sleep. The Doctor’s gut clenched, it was probably all her fault, and she shuffled down a bit to give Yaz space. It had felt altogether far too nice to have Yaz lean against her, to come to her for comfort like she used to. But Yaz doing it while she was asleep felt wrong, like she was taking advantage of her somehow and she didn’t want Yaz to loathe her any more than she already did when she woke. As soon as she moved, the Doctor mourned the loss of the touch, before the Master, before Gallifrey, before everything had gone wrong, she used to go and visit Yaz in her room on the TARDIS in the evenings. They would lie together and talk. Sometimes, Yaz would reach out and take her hand or even give her a hug and, much as she was ashamed to admit it, she craved it. This body generally didn’t like being touched, even less than eyebrows had. In fact, she was probably the most touch averse she had ever been but somehow with Yaz it was okay. Nice even. Now that it was never going to happen again.</p><p>
  <em>YourFaultYourFaultYourFaultYourFault</em>
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</p><p>After about six hours, Yaz was becoming distressed and the Doctor couldn’t listen to it any longer. If she hadn’t been so awful, she would have woken Yaz, they would have talked about it and the Doctor would have offered to put her into a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night. It had happened more than once before.</p><p>“Yaz… wake up.” She called.</p><p>Yaz had tossed and turned so much that the Doctor was no longer entirely sure where she was anymore and didn’t want to reach out and shake her in case she accidentally touched Yaz somewhere she shouldn’t.</p><p>Yaz’s only response was to cry out and somehow manage to hit the Doctor in the stomach with her arm in her sleep.</p><p>“Ooft” the Doctor muttered, slightly winded from the unexpected blow to the stomach before she realised Yaz had stopped making noises.</p><p>“Did I hit you?” She sounded concerned. Only Yaz would sound concerned about hitting someone she couldn’t stand in her sleep.</p><p>“It’s fine, I deserve it.”</p><p>“Yeah, you do.” She didn’t apologise and there was no light heartedness to her voice to suggest she was joking. It hurt.</p><p>
  <em>I deserved that as well. </em>
</p><p>“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked awkwardly.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“Are you sure? Only you were…”</p><p>“I <em>said</em> I’m fine Doctor.” Her voice was cold. Hard.</p><p>The Doctor really wished she could see Yaz’s face. Her face was so expressive, gave you the chance to really know what she was thinking. Not that the Doctor had ever been that great at reading it anyway.</p><p>Finally Yaz moved again, she was rummaging in the bags.</p><p>“What are you looking for?” the Doctor asked trying to keep on a safe topic.</p><p>“The First Aid Kit.”</p><p>The Doctor swallowed her annoyance. She wasn’t a baby and Yaz needed to stop fussing around her. “My ankles fine.”</p><p>“Not everything’s about you, you know.”</p><p>“You’re hurt?”</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“Clearly not if you need a first aid kit. Where are you hurt?”</p><p>“There’s blood in my sleeping bag. Don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s still wet so I’m still bleeding.” She admitted.</p><p>“What? Yaz you’ve been asleep for hours. How have you hurt yourself?”</p><p>“I banged my shoulder blade on a rock yesterday in the water.”</p><p>“What!” the Doctor yelped. “Yaz that was about fifteen hours ago and you didn’t think to mention it? You have no idea what kind of bacteria might be living in that water, your body can’t fight alien bacteria! How could you not mention it? Are you actually insane!?”</p><p>“Me! You’re the one who’s supposed to be able to hold their breath for half an hour and be a champion swimmer so why were you allowing yourself to drown? You were just drifting deeper and deeper making no effort to save your own life whatsoever.”</p><p>“I… we’re not talking about me right now Yasmin.”</p><p>“Will you <em>stop</em> doing that!” Yaz burst out.</p><p>“What?” asked the Doctor, bewildered.</p><p>“Deflecting! And calling me Yasmin for that matter. The only people that call me Yasmin are my superiors at work and Izzie Flint because she knows I hate it.”</p><p>“I'm sorry. You said only your friends call you Yaz. I didn’t know if we were still friends.”</p><p>Yaz looked at her in surprise. She actually looked sad, as if she hadn’t been actively doing everything she could to push them away for months.</p><p>“We’re not. Tell me why you didn’t swim.”</p><p>“I did! I didn’t know which way to swim, I was really disorientated.”</p><p>“You weren’t moving in any direction. Tell me why you didn’t swim.”</p><p>“Can we not have this conversation right now?”</p><p>“Do you want to die?”</p><p>
  <em>And there it was. She had said it. Did she want to die? She honestly didn’t know. She wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to live any more, but she wasn’t sure that was the same thing exactly. She was just so… tired. Tired of failing. Tired of fighting. Tired of grieving. Tired of the pain. </em>
</p><p>Yaz watched her. She was cornered and she knew it. Yaz could practically see the cogs turning in her brain.</p><p>“You know what? Just forget it. Not like I really expected you to answer anyway.”</p><p>
  <em>She had waited too long. Yaz sounded so disappointed. At least if she was angry, she wouldn’t miss her. </em>
</p><p>“Will you let me look at your shoulder for you?”</p><p>“I don’t want you to touch me Doctor. What you said last night? I don’t think I can forgive that. I trusted you with a huge part of myself and I told you what happened the only other time I told someone. What you did was worse than what they did. They were stupid teenagers. You should have known better. I thought you were my best friend. I thought you were my hero.”</p><p>“I know you don’t want to hear it Yaz, but I am sorry.”</p><p>“You're right, I don’t want to hear it. You're too late. I know you’re in pain Doctor. I can't even begin to imagine how much pain you're in, but instead of dealing with it or talking to us, to me, you became worse than my school bullies.”</p><p>Yaz didn’t say any more and although the Doctor could hear her moving around as much as the cramped quarters would allow they didn’t accidentally bump into each other. She suspected that Yaz was avoiding getting too close.</p><p>If the small grunts were anything to go by, Yaz had attempted to bandage her own shoulder blade. The Doctor couldn’t imagine that that had been successful. For a while it had sounded like she was reading, the silence punctuated by the occasional turning of a page, but that had stopped now too. She wasn’t asleep either, her breathing was wrong. Actually, her breathing <em>was</em> wrong.</p><p>“Yaz what’s going on?”</p><p>“What do you mean? We’re two strangers in a very small tent avoiding each other.”</p><p>
  <em>Ouch</em>
</p><p>“You’re breathing wrong.”</p><p>“Well it’s got me this far in life so I think I’ll stick with it if you don’t mind.” She said sarcastically.</p><p>“You’re hurting.”</p><p>“I’m fine. You’re just being creepy. Stop listening to me breathe, it’s weird.”</p><p>“Now who’s deflecting?”</p><p>“Doctor just leave me alone okay. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to be near you. I'm so angry with you I can’t even describe it.”</p><p>
  <em>Stars did those words hurt. Yaz had certainly lost the kid gloves.</em>
</p><p>“Fair enough. But there are many things I don’t want to do in life. And pretty much at the top of that list right now is going to knock on your parent’s door and tell them that you’re never coming home. Except I couldn’t risk you having an autopsy and them finding alien bacteria inside of you so I would probably have to throw your body off a high building so there wouldn’t be any question about the cause of death. Or I could say nothing and let them spend the rest of their lives wondering if you’re ever going to come home. And I really, really don’t want to go to your funeral and know that you died at twenty-one years of age and I might have been able to stop it. So, you’re going to turn around, I’m going to scan you and you're going to tell me what it says without lying. Then you are going to let me treat it.”</p><p>“It’s just a scrape. I’m fine.”</p><p>“What would you like me to tell your parents?” she shot back.</p><p>“Fine.” Yaz shoved the first aid kit at her, not bothering to help her out by finding the things she would need for her.</p><p>“Which…”</p><p>“Left.”</p><p>Yaz had to bite her lip to stop herself crying out in pain. The Doctor had reached out almost timidly until she had made contact with Yaz’s back, had run her fingers up her spine and the across to find her shoulder. Now she was gently probing the would with sensitive fingers to assess the damage.  </p><p>It reminded Yaz that this was real. The Doctor had really gone blind.</p><p>“Here.”</p><p>Yaz looked round and took the scanner off the Doctor, it was already displaying results and she flipped through until she found the setting for English.</p><p>“Lacerations and abrasions. No alien bacteria or parasites or infections. Told you so.”</p><p>The Doctor closed her eyes in relief, allowing herself a moment before she rummaged in the kit to find dressings and bandages. The wound was considerably bigger than Yaz had made out, stretching from the top of her shoulder, almost as far as her spine and down about ten inches. And it wasn’t just one cut, there were loads of them, criss-crossed over the area. She was furious that Yaz had even attempted to hide it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Five hours later, the four of them were sitting around the campfire eating breakfast. Five hours in which Yaz and the Doctor hadn’t said another word to each other. Their tents were packed up and ready to go but no one was moving.</p><p>“Ryan…” the Doctor started awkwardly “… I owe you an apology. What I said to you last night was cruel and unfair and not true. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Right… yeah… whatever.” He muttered.</p><p>“Yaz I already apologised to you, but I wanted to do it again. I am sorry.”</p><p>“Save it Doctor. I’m not interested right now.”</p><p>She nodded and swallowed. Not like she could blame them.</p><p>“Doc… you say you’re not drinking and I'm going to choose to believe you. But you're on something. We need to know what it is.”</p><p>“I'm not ‘on’ anything Graham.”</p><p>“Did you know Grace was my second wife Doc?”</p><p>The Doctor and Yaz looked at him in surprise though Ryan put a supportive hand on his arm. He obviously knew what was coming next.</p><p>“I were only young. We were high-school sweethearts, me and Annette. When we found out she was pregnant we were overjoyed and when my Lizzie was born it was the best thing in the whole world. Only Annette wasn’t too well. They called it the Baby Blues back then, told her to get over it but she couldn’t. She started drinking. One morning when Lizzie was four she and I had a fight. It was stupid, about who was supposed to have done the dishes. She dropped Lizzie to nursery, came home and drank herself into a stupor. Then she went and collected Lizzie and drove her home, plummeted off the road less than a mile from the house. My beautiful baby girl had horrific injuries. They told me that even if she regained consciousness she would never walk or talk and would be in constant pain. So, I held her in my arms and let them turn off her life support. She died just like that. Annette couldn’t live with what she’d done, that she had walked away unscathed. She killed herself the day after our Lizzie’s funeral.  After what you told us yesterday Doc, I get why you want to make that pain go away, I really do, but its not going to help.”</p><p>Yaz found that she was crying, and she got up to hug Graham tightly who returned it gratefully, tearing up a little himself. He always did when he though of Lizzie, his shining star.</p><p>The Doctor was shocked. How had she known Graham all this time and not known about this? How had he never mentioned it. To lose his daughter like he did…</p><p>What if something happened to Graham or Ryan or Yaz because she was on ginger? What if one of them was hurt? Or killed? What if she had to tell Yaz’s mum that Yaz was dead? What if she had to tell Ryan or Graham that their only other family member was injured?</p><p>She reached into her pocket for the white paper bag she knew was there and held it out, felt someone take it from her.</p><p>“What are they Doc?”</p><p>“Ginger humbugs. Timelords… we really don’t get drunk, I wasn’t lying, but the ginger causes a profoundly deleterious effect that’s similar. Take them. I don’t have anymore.”</p><p>“You sure Doc? I’ll trust you one time but if you betray the trust you won't get it back.”</p><p>“I’m sure, that’s all I have here.”</p><p>“And on the TARDIS?”</p><p>“Don’t worry, she’ll be on your side.”</p><p>Graham scrutinised her for a moment before deciding to take her at face value. This time.</p><p>“Right…” he announced. “Now that that’s cleared up, I think we should get moving.”</p><p>“Graham, before we do, I just wanted to say, I'm so sorry about your family.”</p><p>“Don’t be Doc. Weren’t your fault and it were a long time ago. Just, please don’t have any more ginger yeah? You're too important to lose even when you are behaving like a degenerate.”</p><p>She shrugged her pack onto her shoulders and instantly thought of Yaz and her injured shoulder.</p><p>“Yaz, can you carry your pack?”</p><p>“Yes. I'm not helpless you know.”</p><p>She sucked in a breath. Why could she not say anything without upsetting someone these days?</p><p>“I just meant, that’s quite a large wound on your shoulder, are you able to carry your pack, won't it rub at it? Do you want me to take it.”</p><p>“It’s fine. It’s well covered, you put about a million bandages on it. Just… if you’re going to use me as a guide could you hold the other arm?”</p><p>She was shocked. She had assumed Yaz would refuse to walk with her. Again, not like she could blame her.</p><p>“You’ll guide me?”</p><p>Honestly it was a relief, you could learn the techniques to be a sighted guide, they weren’t rocket science but neither Graham or Ryan could intuitively do it the way Yaz could, either from instinct or years of experience or both.</p><p>“I think Graham and Ryan have both proved themselves fairly incompetent in that area over the last two days and judging by the mountain I can see in front of us, today isn’t going to be the day for them to learn. I'm still angry with you Doctor, doesn’t mean I want to see you hurt or would leave you high and dry. I’m not that kind of person.”</p><p>Yasmin Khan, always the best of humanity, even when the Doctor really didn’t deserve her.</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am so very sorry that this took so long. Just the epilogue to go after this. It's nearly written so will be up in a day or two. </p><p>If you're following Shattered I have several chapters planned in detail and will write them as soon as the epilogue to this is written. If you've read the first part of my two-parter Inhale, Exhale Repeat, the second part will be posted mid next week.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first part of the climb was easy. The terrain was smooth, the incline easily manageable and the weather not too hot. The Doctor tried to keep a light hold of Yaz’s right arm. As always, Yaz was guiding her expertly, professionally, allowing the Doctor to keep the tide of terror mostly at bay. But unlike in their hiking a few days ago she wasn’t keeping up a narrative of what was around them. In fact, none of them were speaking to her at all. They chatted to each other and while they didn’t exclude her as such, they gave her no specific invitation to draw her into conversation. Instead, she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, resisting the urge to lie on the ground in a heap and focused on the feel of Yaz’s arm beneath her hand, her main reminder that the rest of the world did indeed still exist.</p><p>She was also ashamed. She had been so focused on keeping her fam safe, protecting them from her problems all she had ended up doing was pushing them away. What she had said to Ryan and done to Yaz in particular, had been totally unacceptable and she had no idea how to fix it. Or even if it could be fixed.  </p><p>Hearing Yaz telling her they weren’t friends had been like taking a blast from a Dalek gun to her guts.</p><p>She had deserved it. Didn’t mean it was any easier to hear.</p><p>She knew they were going to leave her after this. Not only had she got them stranded on an alien planet. <em>Again</em>. She had treated them appallingly and she knew it.</p><p>She would be alone. And it was entirely her own fault.</p><p>And blind.</p><p>She had really hoped that her sight would have returned by now but there was nothing. Not a flicker. She had told Yaz she had diagnostic equipment on the TARDIS and she did, but it wasn’t like it could tell her how long it was going to last. Assuming the TARDIS would even cooperate with her. She would be so mad at her for treating the fam like she had. That was okay, she was mad at herself too.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Yaz stole another glance at the Doctor. She didn’t know why she was bothering, it wasn’t like the other woman would be able to see her staring, and yet somehow she always knew. Her face was carefully neutral but there was a hard line around her mouth and jaw. Her grip on Yaz’s arm was uncomfortably tight and getting tighter. Then, as if she was realising what she was doing she would relax it suddenly only for it to start tightening again. She was frightened Yaz knew, but she had learned over the last few days that calling her out on it or offering her any form of comfort or reassurance would only end up with it being thrown back in her face.</p><p>Yaz was also trying to decide what would happen next. She knew Ryan wanted to get back to his old life and was just waiting for the right time to tell the Doctor. And if Ryan stayed at home Graham would stay with him. But what did she want? She honestly didn’t know. Before this, she had no indention of going anywhere, life with the Doctor was everything she had ever wanted and she had no desire for it to ever end. But now… she didn’t feel safe anymore. She didn’t feel like she could trust the woman she had thought was her best friend. Not if she could use her worst memories and biggest secrets against her. But on the other hand, could she in all good conscience send the Doctor back out into the universe utterly alone and newly blind? The Doctor wasn’t her responsibility… but if she wasn’t her responsibility then whose was she? She had told them herself that her entire family was dead. She had no other friends. She was wholly and utterly alone. Could Yaz honestly do that to her? She didn’t know.   </p><p>But… were they even going home? Could the Doctor fly the TARDIS when she couldn’t see it? She had once told them it was designed to be flown by six people which certainly explained why she danced around it like a woman possessed. But after she accidentally kidnapped them, it had taken her fourteen attempts to get them home and she had been able to see perfectly well then. She regularly told them that the TARDIS was infinite though they had rarely seen her leave the console room. But even it was large with hazards for a blind person all over the place – steps in weird places, columns protruding from the floor, no hand railings to stop her falling off the raised platform in the centre. And even if she was just looking for the central console there was nothing to guide her to it and if she veered off course slightly she would miss the console – too far right and she would fall up the stairs, too far left and she would fall off the platform.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Yaz was so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the path they were following was getting narrower and narrower until the Doctor stumbled over a small rock that marked its edge, banging into Yaz.</p><p>“Doctor I’m so sorry” she apologised, mortified, bracing them both.</p><p>“It’s fine.”</p><p>“No, it isn’t. I wasn’t paying enough attention. It’s unacceptable.”</p><p>“Forget it Yaz. Let’s just get on with it.”</p><p>“I…” she fell silent at the Doctor’s glare. It was unnerving just how well those eyes that couldn’t see could connect with her own.</p><p>“There is a path here but it’s narrow and overgrown, rocks on either side. There’s ground either side but its all bushes with thorns.” Yaz explained, moving her arm that the Doctor was holding behind her and the Doctor’s hand automatically slid down her arm to settle on her wrist, making her stand behind Yaz so they took up less space on the path.</p><p>Graham and Ryan had gone on ahead and by the time the Doctor and Yaz had finished navigating the path they were both flopped on the grass of a small, shady clearing. There were food parcels on the ground in front of them and Graham was treating Ryan’s hands which were all scraped from where he had presumably taken a tumble.</p><p>Neither of them spoke as the girls sat down.</p><p>“Graham at your twelve o’clock and Ryan at your ten.” Yaz announced pointedly, glaring at the two boys. The Doctor might be treating them like shit but it was cruel to not give her the basic information that she needed. If they didn’t alert her to their presence, then to her they didn’t exist.</p><p>They shrugged but the Doctor gave a tiny nod of thanks.</p><p>Yaz pressed one of the mystery food packets into her hand and watched her to make sure she actually opened it.</p><p>Yaz bit into her own, muffling a cough of disgust as the taste of a lentil stew filled her mouth. She hated lentils.</p><p>“You alright Yaz?” asked Ryan, seeing the look on her face.</p><p>“Can’t stand lentils” she muttered and Ryan laughed.</p><p>“Here I’ve got a curry” the Doctor offered, holding out her packet.</p><p>“You love curry.”</p><p>“Yeah but not as much as you apparently hate lentils. Plus, you ate my pears for me.”</p><p>Yaz took the offered curry and handed her the stew, annoyed with herself for feeling slightly suspicious of the kind action.</p><p>“Why does the TARDIS do that?”</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“You hate pears, apparently with a passion. Why did she make the food pear flavoured.”</p><p>The Doctor shrugged. “New body, new tastebuds. Used to hate apples, now I love them. Used to think jammy dodgers were better than custard creams. One body had a real thing for jelly babies. Used to eat fish fingers dipped in custard..”</p><p>“Doc you can’t be serious?” Graham asked in horror. “Fish fingers and custard?”</p><p>“I know, probably not one of my more endearing combinations.”  </p><p>“Sounds like you’ve always had a sweet tooth though?” Yaz asked.</p><p>“Yeah suppose so, never really thought about it. Some parts of my personality are fairly consistent through regenerations, others change a lot.”</p><p>“Sounds confusing.”</p><p>She shrugged again, looking uncomfortable with all the scrutiny that was suddenly directed at her and as soon as they had eaten, she chivvied them along, anxious to get moving, knowing the climb was only going to get worse and they needed to get somewhere safe before nightfall. As it was, they were balanced precariously on tufts of grass, using their feet to brace them against gravity pulling them back down the mountain side.</p><p>Yaz offered her an arm and they were off again. The trip was less silent now, all four of them were breathing heavily. The atmosphere was beginning to thin, much sooner than it would have on earth, so oxygen was in short supply. The Doctor had one small cannister and a mask in her bag but it was for emergencies only – mainly if someone had a heart attack. It couldn’t sustain them all while they climbed. Ryan and Graham were both struggling though seemed to be helping each other. If she could see, she could have walked with Graham, encouraging him forward and offering him an arm to lean on. Yaz could have walked with Ryan, pushing him past his self-imposed limits. Instead she was stumbling and tripping on the steadily worsening terrain despite Yaz’s patient and detailed guidance while clinging to Yaz’s arm like a lifeline. Yaz on the other hand was finding the hike relatively easy compared to the rest of them, the only one of they without a reason to struggle. Hopefully it remained that way.</p><p>Without making a big deal of it, Yaz had slowed her pace significantly. The ground was now downright treacherous. Just ahead, Ryan had taken several tumbles to the ground. He and Graham were doing their best to help each other out and had also slowed down. But the Doctor was struggling the most, despite Yaz giving her comprehensive information about what was underfoot and she kept slipping and sliding, threatening to pull Yaz down with her. Yaz vaguely thought about how the Doctor was going to have to learn to use a cane when they got off this planet if her sight hadn’t returned, this wasn’t safe or good for her confidence and ability to function as an independent person.</p><p>Gradually the forest and undergrowth became rocky and barren and Yaz gulped when she saw what was in front of them. A ledge, no wider than a foot, ran around the side of the cliff face, a sheer drop on either side.</p><p>Yaz stopped, putting a hand on the Doctor’s chest as she did so to signal that she should stop as well.</p><p>“We’re coming to a sheer cliff” Yaz explained softly “there’s a ledge we can walk on, its about a foot deep most of the way round though there’s bits that are narrower. It looks stable but some in some parts the edges are crumbling.”</p><p>“Is there another way round?”</p><p>“Doesn’t seem to be. Sorry.”</p><p>The Doctor nodded, accepting the information and let go of Yaz’s arm, fishing in her pocket for the sonic which she held out for Yaz to take.</p><p>“What’s that for?” asked Yaz, keeping her hands at her side.</p><p>“I need you to take it.”</p><p>“Not until you tell me why.”</p><p>“Because there’s probably a very high chance that I’ll fall over the edge and this is the only way you’ll find the TARDIS if she’s submerged. I told you, she has emergency protocols. She’ll take you home to the right time zone.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“No what?”</p><p>“No I’m not taking it. I <em>will</em> guide you round that ledge safely.”</p><p>“Yaz I can't let you do that. If I fall I’ll pull you down with me and I won’t be responsible for that. I might regenerate, you won't.”</p><p>“First off” began Yaz furiously “as we already discussed, you don’t ‘let’ me do anything. I'm an adult who is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. Second, as we also already discussed, we are <em>not</em> leaving you behind. I don’t care how nasty you’ve been, nobody deserves that. Now lets go.”</p><p>“I cannot be responsible for another friends death.”</p><p>“Well I can't be responsible for yours. The universe would probably implode or something and the TARDIS would be so mad at me she probably wouldn’t take me home anyway.”</p><p>“Doc lets go, we aren’t having this discussion.” Her head snapped to face Graham who had reappeared suddenly.</p><p>“Graham I…”</p><p>“Not a snowballs chance in hell Doc. Take Yaz’s arm or whatever it is you to do and let’s go before we lose daylight.”</p><p>She turned back to Yaz. “Yaz please…”</p><p>“Let’s go Doctor. I’m too tired to argue with you anymore.”</p><p>Yaz brushed her hand against the Doctor’s for her to take her arm as a guide twice and when she didn’t take it Yaz grabbed her wrist instead, dragging her to the beginning of the cliff face while ignoring her protests.</p><p>“You can’t just drag me around Yaz” she yelled angrily. “I’m not a child!”</p><p>“Then stop behaving like one and let’s go. Ryan has already started and he’s freaking out. He needs to see you managing to give him confidence. Now move.”</p><p>Emotional blackmail sure, but Yaz would do anything to get her shifted. She knew the Doctor was frightened, so was she, but standing around wasn’t going to get them to a place of safety for the night.</p><p>The Doctor glared at her again but this time took Yaz’s arm when she offered it. Yaz guided her a few more steps and then placed her hand on the rocky cliff face.</p><p>“You’re going to have to side step, it isn’t wide enough to walk forwards. Take hold of my hand and we walk together, keep both hands in contact with the cliff at all times, it’ll stop you taking a step forwards and I’ll talk you through every step of the way.”</p><p>The Doctor visibly swallowed but followed Yaz’s calm, patient directions to get onto the ledge, trying to quell the rising tide of terror threatening to take over her body. Her instincts were screaming at her, warning her against what she was about to do.</p><p>Yaz was just in front of her, holding her hand tightly, her palm remarkably sweat free unlike her own.</p><p>“Keep stepping, this bit is smooth and stable… there’s a few small loose rocks here, I’m going to kick them off so don’t panic if you hear them fall… They’re gone, keep your hands to the wall, this bit is a little narrower but your boots will fit.”</p><p>Yaz’s voice was so calm while the Doctor’s own hearts were dancing the quickstep, threatening to dance right out of her chest and down the cliff face. She wanted nothing more than to curl up and wait for this nightmare to end but Yaz’s small hands, even smaller than her own, were urging her forward insistently. She could hear Ryan and Graham further ahead. They were talking to each other, but she was trying to tune them out and concentrate on what Yaz was telling her.</p><p>“Next bit is a little crumbly Doctor. Ryan and Graham have got across fine, the rocks might shift a little under your feet but I’ve got you tight, stay calm, you’ve got this.”</p><p>She didn’t need a cheerleader thank-you very much. But none the less the words were comforting. Yaz was right, the rocks under her feet were slipping and sliding in a nausea inducing fashion and she opened her eyes as wide as she could, desperate for some visual reassurance. Unsurprisingly, none came but beside her Yaz had stopped.</p><p>“Okay don’t panic, but there’s a gap. It’s about three feet, after that the end is in sight.”</p><p>“Have… have Ryan and Graham crossed?”</p><p>“Yeah they’re both fine. They’re almost at the end. I’m going to let go of your hand just for a second while I cross.”</p><p>“No, Yaz…”</p><p>“You’re fine Doctor, don’t move. I won’t leave you, I promise.”</p><p>She felt Yaz drop her hand and she instantly clamped it more tightly against the cliff face as if the world was now suddenly going to drop away from her and her palms pressed against it with nothing to hold onto would be able to stop it.</p><p>“I’m across. Stretch your hand out so I can take it.”</p><p>Tentatively the Doctor reached out, keeping her palm against the rock, until she felt Yaz grasp it tightly.</p><p>“Shuffle sideways towards me. I’ll tell you when to stop but you need to be right against the edge.”</p><p>She tried, she really did, but her feet wouldn’t move. Yaz squeezed her hand so tightly it was almost painful.</p><p>“No freaking out on me now Doctor. Move your feet, let’s go.”</p><p>Slowly, cautiously, her feet shuffled sideways until Yaz urged her to stop.</p><p>“You’re right on the edge now Doctor. The gap is about three feet, if you were walking on the ground you would barely break your stride. I’ve got you.”</p><p>Yaz stamped her boot hard against the ground.</p><p>“Hear that? That’s where you’re aiming for Doctor, you can do it. You’re going to be fine.”</p><p>
  <em>Come on legs. Move. </em>
</p><p>“Doctor I’m not going to pull you, I don’t want to risk upsetting your balance but you can’t stay where you are. You need to step, I’m right here and I won't let you fall.”</p><p>She lifted her foot, running it against the cliff. Yaz was quietly urging her to keep moving, still banging at the rock with her boot to provide an audio cue for where she needed to be.</p><p>“That’s it, your foot is far enough over now. You just need to put it down and step.”</p><p>Taking a deep breath, the Doctor placed her foot down on the ledge hesitantly and almost immediately brought her other foot over to join it, unable to hide her sigh of relief.</p><p>“Keep moving, we’re nearly there.” Yaz urged her to keep moving, gently pulling her over the last few metres of rock.</p><p>As soon as both her feet were able to stand parallel again, the Doctor felt her adrenaline levels that had been keeping her moving bottom out and she sagged involuntarily against Yaz who wrapped strong arms around her, rubbing her back lightly. “I’ve got you, you’re safe. We’re all safe” she whispered quietly in her ear.</p><p>She allowed Yaz to lower her onto a large rock and she called Graham over who immediately put a comforting hand on her shoulder.</p><p>“Excuse me just a sec” Yaz murmured and the Doctor heard her practically sprint away.</p><p>Then she heard a distinctive retch and splatter sound and an unpleasant aroma hit her nose.</p><p>Yaz was throwing up, quite violently it sounded. She stood up quickly, turning in the direction of the sound but Ryan was faster, she could hear his uneven stride running over to her.</p><p>“Yaz mate, you alright?”</p><p>“Fine” she groaned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, still leaning against a tree with her hand for support, the other wrapped around her stomach.</p><p>“Yaz are you sick?” the Doctor has joined the scene and she actually managed to sound concerned, almost as if she cared.</p><p>“No I’m fine. All over now.”</p><p>“You were throwing up” the Doctor persisted. “I’ll get the medical scanner out; check you haven’t caught some sort of bug from our swim yesterday.”</p><p>“Doctor stop. I’m fine. I don’t have a bug or a parasite or anything else.”</p><p>“Humans don’t throw up for no reason Yaz. The Tayo do and the Flabra do but not humans.” She was still rummaging in her pack.</p><p>“I was throwing up because I was afraid alright?”</p><p>
  <em>Yaz was afraid? Yaz was never afraid. </em>
</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Yaz actually laughed but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Because I just guided you across a narrow, crumbling ledge that looks like it could collapse at any moment, hundreds of feet up and was the only thing stopping you taking one miniscule misstep which would send you plummeting over the edge  and it was terrifying. Especially because I’m not entirely convinced you didn’t want to take that step.” She admitted.</p><p>The Doctor reached out her arm looking for Yaz, she was in the right direction but wasn’t quite sure how far away Yaz was but at that moment, there was a buzz from her pocket.</p><p>Frowning the Doctor rummaged, pulling out the sonic, a grin spreading over her face.</p><p>“It’s the TARDIS! She’s here?”</p><p>“Here?”</p><p>“What? Seriously?”</p><p>“What do we do now?”</p><p>“I’m going to call her. She won’t like it and we’re way above the water level up here but I’ll give it a try.”</p><p>The Doctor held the Sonic tightly in her hand, almost like an extension of herself, and pointed it towards the water mumbling to herself.</p><p>They all held their breaths.</p><p>A grating, groaning, wheezing sound filled the air and they let out a muted cheer.</p><p>They were safe.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The fam have some decisions to make now. Will they keep travelling with her? Will she even let them? Can the Doctor fly the TARIDS blind to get them home? Will she always be blind? Let me know what you think below!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank-you so much to everyone who took the time to leave me such lovely, supportive comments. I really appreciate them and they make my day when I read them.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yaz lay in her own bed, luxuriating in the space. Her sleeping bag had been perfectly comfortable but sharing the tiny tent with the Doctor had been uncomfortable at best. She really needed the break from her.</p><p>When they had arrived back in the TARDIS a couple of hours before, the Doctor had strode in confidently and promptly fallen up a step, landing heavily and awkwardly on one side, banging her head on one of the columns. They had all winced and Yaz was ashamed to say that she had taken a step back when the Doctor had given Graham an almost feral growl when he had dared to try and help her up.</p><p>She had pulled herself to her feet using the column for support and staggered towards the console, almost missing it entirely.</p><p>They had watched her in trepidation as she appeared to have engaged in some sort of mostly silent battle with the TARDIS and they had taken off without her touching a single control.</p><p>Usually when she dropped them off at home, she walked them to the door and they made firm plans about when she would be back. This time she had stayed where she was at the console, her arms crossed defensively across her chest as the three of them trooped out, not responding to their half hearted ‘see you laters.’</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Yaz was, therefore, surprised when she woke up the next morning and found the TARDIS still parked outside. She was even more surprised when she came back from her shift that evening and it was <em>still</em> there.</p><p>She went to knock but before she could even raise her hand to the blue wood, the door had sprung open.</p><p>“Go away. This is private, you shouldn’t be here.”</p><p>Yaz looked up and saw the Doctor sitting, leaning on the console. She hadn’t looked up and there was a fresh bruise on her forehead where she had apparently walked into something else.</p><p>“It’s Yaz.”</p><p>“What are you doing here?” she asked rudely.</p><p>Yaz sighed and walked across the metal floor, sitting down next to her.</p><p>“I could ask you the same question. Thought you wanted ‘off this planet’ as soon as possible.”</p><p>She winced as she heard her own words. “TARDIS is refusing to fly… and I hate being quoted back to.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Yaz, I can't see.” She whispered, her voice laced with grief.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>Yaz slid her hand across the floor until it was resting against the Doctor’s. The Doctor moved hers a little and wrapped her pinkie over Yaz’s nervously. Yaz noticed she was crying silently again. She moved her arm and wrapped it around the Doctor’s shoulders, drawing her in close.</p><p>They sat like that for a long time until the Doctor drew away.</p><p>“You hugged me.” The Doctor said, surprised.</p><p>“Yeah…”</p><p>“I thought you hated me.”</p><p>“I don’t hate you Doctor. I don’t like you very much at the moment, but I don’t think I could ever hate you.”</p><p>“You should. I hate myself right now. What I said… what I did… it was unforgivable.”</p><p>Yaz shrugged, knowing the Doctor was sitting close enough to feel the action.</p><p>“What do I do now?”</p><p>“Learn to live with it. You don’t have a choice.”</p><p>“What if I can't?” she whispered.</p><p>“Did you use the diagnostic equipment? What did it say?”</p><p>The Doctor was silent though the TARDIS beeped and whirred around them causing the Doctor to scowl.</p><p>“You couldn’t find the medbay could you?” Yaz surmised softly. “Come on let’s go.”</p><p>Yaz moved into the now familiar position to guide the Doctor, somehow it felt much more intrusive, guiding her around her own ship, her home. The Doctor’s movements were much more hesitant and cautious than they had been on Troome and Yaz kept a respectful silence other than necessary cues and matched the other woman’s hesitant pace. She suspected the Doctor had had several spills in the mere twenty-four hours they had been apart.</p><p>“We’re here.” She announced quietly as they entered the gleaming whiteness of the medbay. “What do we need to do?”</p><p>
  <em>We? The Doctor allowed a small flicker of warmth to flare in her chest. Yaz had said we. Maybe it was an accident though, didn’t mean she was going to stay.</em>
</p><p>The Doctor closed her eyes, reviewing the medbay in her mind. It was the one part of her ship that was always neat and tidy, everything in its place at all times.</p><p>“Grey press on your left, fourth section on the right, top drawer should have a sort of cap thing in it with loads of wires attached and one big thick cable?”</p><p>She could hear rummaging and grunting.</p><p>“Is it not there?”</p><p>“I don’t know, I’m not tall enough to reach. Why is it so high? You’re no taller than me.”</p><p>“Never been this small before. My last body had at least a foot on this one as I found out to my detriment when I nearly missed the crane the night we met.”</p><p>Yaz shuddered at the memory and the Doctor heard her scrape something over the floor, presumably something she could stand on.</p><p>“I’ve got it”</p><p>There was a small thud, Yaz had probably jumped down, and a repeat of the scraping sound, this time moving away from them.</p><p>“Now what?” Yaz asked.</p><p>She startled slightly, Yaz was right beside her again. She hadn’t heard what she assumed were her thick, rubber soled work boots on the floor. When she had held Yaz’s arm, it certainly felt like her work uniform.</p><p>“I need to sit on a bed, the cap plugs into the machinery attached.”</p><p>Yaz guided her to the closest one and put her hand on the edge of the mattress so she could sit down.</p><p>“How do I plug it in?”</p><p>“The screen behind the bed pulls out. There’s a port on the bottom left, plug the thick cable in there. Then down the right hand side are a series of smaller ports, they’re… they’re colour coded.” She choked out the last part.</p><p>Yaz didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say, even if she tried any form of comfort it was sure to be taken as an insult and thrown back at her and she honestly didn’t think she could take any more of that.</p><p>Honestly, she wasn’t even sure why she was here now.</p><p>The Doctor could smell the faint scent of Yaz – her shampoo and body wash, her body armour, a little sweat – and the air around her shifted as Yaz moved, fumbling a little with the alien technology.</p><p>“All plugged in.”</p><p>“Where’s the cap? I need to wear it and the two large blue patches at the front need to be covering my eyes, the purple patches on the side need to be over my ears.”</p><p>Yaz passed her the cap and she placed it on her head, feeling it first to locate the slightly textured patches that were to cover her eyes and ears.</p><p>“It’s a little wonky Doctor, may I?” Yaz asked.</p><p>The Doctor huffed and crossed her arms but didn’t stop her. She had managed to get one blue and one purple patch over her eyes, leaving a blue patch on her ear and a purple one around the back. Yaz lifted the cap off and resettled it. The end result was slightly bizarre, making her look a little like a bug. The cap came down to just past the base of the Doctor’s skull at the back and swept up, covering her ears and eyes but missing her nose.</p><p>“Do we need to do anything else?”</p><p>“Just press the yellow circle on the touch screen. It’ll do its thing.”</p><p>Yaz did and the cap came to life. It didn’t move or vibrate or anything but the wires that covered it glowed softly and it emitted a faint whirring noise.</p><p>“How long does it take?”</p><p>“About ten minutes or so. You don’t have to stay, sure you would rather be with your family.”</p><p>“If you want privacy I’ll go and hang out in my room, the TARDIS will let me know when you’re done I’m sure (she let out a confirmatory beep) but there’s no way I’m just gonna leave you on your own for this.”</p><p>
  <em>‘My room.’ She still considered it hers then. </em>
</p><p>The Doctor allowed the tiny, hopeful flame in her chest to light up a little more.</p><p>“No… you can stay… I’d like you to stay.” She said awkwardly.</p><p>She felt the bed dip on her left hand side. Yaz had sat down next to her. The air around her exposed ankles was stirring, Yaz must be swinging her feet.</p><p>The Doctor squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if it would make any difference to the results. Yaz could see she was gripping the edge of the mattress so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.</p><p>She looked so small and vulnerable. The hate and anger that had been contorting her features while they were on Troome had settled now she was in a more familiar environment, and her true feelings of fear, hurt and loneliness were coming through.</p><p>Yaz knew what she had to do.</p><p>“Hey Doctor?”</p><p>The Doctor turned her head to face her.</p><p>“No matter what the results of this scan… I won't just abandon you okay? I know you don’t want any help and you’ve made it abundantly clear than you don’t want any of us around. But you shouldn’t be alone right now.”</p><p>“She’s right Doc.”</p><p>The Doctor’s head swivelled round. There were two sets of footsteps walking into the medbay.</p><p>The bed dipped on her other side. She was pretty sure that was Ryan. There was a soft clatter of small wheels, the chair from the desk possibly, and someone sat with a small groan. Must be Graham.</p><p>“Why are you here?”</p><p>“Yaz texted. Said you needed a friend.” Ryan answered from her right.</p><p>The Doctor was surprised, she hadn’t heard Yaz on her phone.</p><p>“But I was awful to you.”</p><p>“Yeah you were.” Agreed Ryan coolly.</p><p>She hung her head, once again overcome with shame and embarrassment for the way she had behaved. For how she had treated her best and pretty much only friends. Her fam.</p><p>“Doc we’re you’re fam. And you’re not alright love, no matter how hard you try to pretend that everything’s fine and dandy we know it isn’t.”</p><p>“You don’t have to do everything alone Doctor” came Yaz’s soft voice from her left.</p><p>She squirmed, they were all looking at her. Not fair, she couldn’t reciprocate.</p><p>The scanner beeped.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I have obviously left this very open with the view to picking it up again at some point in the future. If you think it's something you would be interested in reading please let me know below! </p><p>What do you think happens next? Let me know below!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Sequel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The sequel, called Obscure is now up! You can find it in the archive or it’s linked to this piece. Hope you enjoy... we’ve got a bit of a mystery going on!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sequel, called Obscure is now up! You can find it in the archive or it’s linked to this piece. Hope you enjoy... we’ve got a bit of a mystery going on!</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Will the fam find the TARDIS?<br/>Will they all stay safe?<br/>Will the Doctor get her sight back?<br/>Who knows? Do I know?<br/>Write a comment and let me know what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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